Time Isn't Real Pt. 02

Then, as Hugo walked into the room, I felt a swell of anger inside me.

'You should have come outside,' he said, holding a notebook in his hands, and clapping it shut, clipping a pen into the pocket of his shirt.

'That's my dad's...'

'No,' he said, shutting me up as two more of his goons followed him in, closing the door behind them. 'It's mine. Just like that... gift of yours. Wasted, honestly. You should know, if you attempt to pause time, my agents will kill your friends; either here, today, or in a month, or a year. They've been paid very well, and thanks to your father's investment advice in the years up until your birth, I have the capital to support it.'

His face was drab, emotionless. Like he was giving a lecture.

'That doesn't have to happen,' I said, trying to avoid the panicking, confused faces of my friends.

'I know,' he said. 'That's just my contingency. You can never be too prepared when you're facing time-meddlers. But Brooke, you and I know what I want from you. What I need from you.'

I stared him down. I didn't look at my flatmates, and whether they'd picked up on time-meddlers, as Hugo had put it. I didn't have it in my heart to find out. I just kept my eyes on him, trying to figure out another way.

If there was one.

'Well?' he asked, putting the pressure on. 'Come now, we walk away - no one gets hurt. And, Brooke, if you try the other part of your gift, I'll know.'

He patted the notepad in his pocket, and I frowned. 'A fixed point...' I mumbled, remembering what my father had called it.

Hugo nodded. 'No matter what you do, I have all of our conversations recorded, Brooke. Go back a week, and the me from a week ago will know that this conversation happened, and that you tried to run. He'll know where your friends live, and that the only way to get to you is to put pressure on them. Save yourself the trouble.'

I rubbed my eyes. 'You stole that.'

He faltered, not expecting that.

'From my dad - who had just died of cancer,' I said, my voice raising with each word. 'And what for - for, fucking, leverage?'

'It's a fixed point,' he said. 'A unique object, Brooke. Frozen in time, unimpeded by the reversal of entropy - it is impossible. And it's what's going to get me your power - calmly, and peacefully, or... not.'

Only then did my heart flick to my friends. Penny, her hand crushing Ryan's, looked like she was going to have a heart attack. Ryan was still, quiet, his mind probably racing. Kloe, her face having been horrified, had settled into a forced-calm; like putting a storm in a bottle.

Shannon... Shannon knew. She had watched some of the videos, and she knew enough from me to have an idea of what this was - but she still looked shocked. Appalled.

How could I have let this happen?

Hugo held out his hand, open towards me. The four guys, guns lazily at their sides, stiffened a little, waiting for something to happen - and it did.

I took it.

Kloe took a half-step, and one of the guys immediately put his arm across her, as Hugo's hand closed around mine.

'Good choice.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN - THE BLUR

For someone with a complicated relationship with time, it seemed to slip past in an instant between Hugo pulling me from the flat, and being herded into the car. Hugo wasn't driving - he pulled me in behind him to the back seat, and one of his lackeys got in the driving seat. I don't know what the other three did, but I didn't care. I barely noticed.

All I could think about was Hugo, and his hand clamped around mine, and the way the car purred pleasantly into life beneath us.

We pulled away, into the road, and started to drive.

'Take us to the lab,' Hugo said, as though this was some sort of taxi. 'Carrigan Road, you know it.' The driver nodded. Hugo, then, turned to me, and pulled out my father's notebook. 'Fascinating thing,' he said. 'But I won't need it now. Still, I'll keep it on me. Nine months until this is really all sorted out.'

'You're sick,' I told him, and he scoffed.

'Nah. You're father - he was sick. Not just from the cancer, either. The man wanted to live lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. Making money, fucking whoever he wanted, having the life. And, to get there was me, his... his clever little friend who knew more than him. I deserved what he had, Brooke. More than him, anyway. I would have done so much more in my youth than just profit. Such a selfish way to think of the world. You, too - using your power whatever you wanted. You don't deserve to live.'

'How can you say that?' I asked, trying not to cry.

Hugo shrugged. 'I've got a lot of resentment for your father. Clearly it's rubbed off onto you. I'm not sure what's so complicated.'

The road was busy, but fast, and the sounds of horns and tyres-on-tarmac was creating an odd, constant rhythm, a pace beneath us that washed over us.

'I spent my entire life sucking up to your father, waiting for my chance to take what he squandered; I won't let you squander it, too.'

'It's not your choice,' I said, closing my eyes.

Time Isn't Real.

The car stopped, the road silenced, Hugo's face froze in it's smug way. I had only a minute or so before this ran out - the same way it had back at the shop. So, I used it to do the only thing that came to mind. I reached into Hugo's jacket, and I took the notebook.

Even as I held it, it felt... off. Like it was aware of me. It buzzed, or had some kind of magnetic pull.

I kind of hated it.

Even so, I opened it to the most recent page, and saw all of Hugo's notes - the scrawlings in pigeon-scratch about his plan, and what he had threatened; if I jumped back, he'd left a note to himself to kill my friends and take me by force.

So that wasn't a bluff, then.

Well, fuck him. I ripped the page out, leant over the driver - his window was cracked open, and I was able to push the page through the gap. Even though it froze just outside the gap, I knew that the moment the world started up again, it would be whipped away.

Which, of course, meant I was able to jump back in time now.

In theory.

If I was able.

I settled back into my seat, trying to match my original posture, and putting my hand back into Hugo's grip. I had to squeeze his fingers around me, and hope for the best - despite knowing he'd probably feel that anyway.

Oh well.

Fuck him.

Time Isn't Real, I thought, channelling the words to bring the world back into time.

Hugo's face flexed as his fingers rolled around mine. His eyes narrowed. 'What did you do?'

I shrugged. 'You're the one who's been planning this for God-knows-how-long. You figure it out.'

He rubbed his face, dropping my hand, before sucking in a deep breath. Then, he gave me a long, hard look.

'This is over,' he said. 'It's not worth the risk.'

'Risk?' I asked, confused.

'WHY is it so hard,' he asked, but it wasn't to me - it wasn't to anyone. Not to me or the driver. He was just... rambling.

Then, from beneath his jacket, on the opposite side to the notebook, he reached in and pulled out a small, shining pistol, and lay it on his lap.

'If I put a bullet in her head,' he said, still not speaking to anyone but himself, 'she'd probably still be ready to harvest, right? If not... I suppose the mother would be next on the list.'

My stomach turned.

'You dirty fucker.'

His eyes snapped up to me, coldness overwhelming. 'How dare you.' Then, he raised the gun up to me head, steeling himself for what he was doing, and-

When the world stopped, it wasn't the same as normal.

Normal. Ha. How had any of this become normal?

Even so - the way the world would pause, that pressure in my head - it was all wrong. Instead, the car around me blurred, faded and fuzzy as the sounds hovered in the air - loud and unending and stubborn, meeting my ears as I shifted inside my seat.

Hugo looked at me, one hand on the gun, one on my hand, trying to hold me in place. His eyes bored into me, wide and scared and wild.

The car was still, but Hugo buzzed, the same as the notebook. Shimmering between moments.

Then, I realised where I was, and what I was doing.

I wound us back.

The car slid back on the road, the rhythm of the road reverse. I travelled with it, my body moving backwards, unwinding through time's unending entropy. Obeying.

But hugo didn't.

He stayed, frozen in place, as the car left him behind. We slipped back, up the road, as he hovered in place, slipping between the shuddering, blurring car seat, out through the bonnet, and into the road ahead of us.

A Fixed Point, I thought. Just like the notebook - it became a fixed point because my dad had it on him when he went back the first time - that first entropy break.

No part of me was touching the car - my clothes were following me into the past, but Hugo was fixed now.

Outside of time.

Just like he wanted.

Ha.

Fuck him.

Time started again, a minute ago. The car slammed into Hugo, his body impacting the front window, and careening off to the left.

The driver stopped, looking at us with panic in his eyes.

But it wasn't enough.

Soon enough, there would be police here, and they'd see me in the back of the car. I'd be taken in for questioning. Then my flatmates, who would talk. Why wouldn't they? I'd be linked to Hugo. Somehow, they'd pin it on me.

I had to go further.

Back into the blur. Adrenaline spiked through me, like being stabbed in the heart. It was completely different from stopping time - more fluid than solid. Like wading through frozen water, only I couldn't control my steps - only the speed and direction of the water.

As I rolled time back, willing it with a part of myself I didn't fully understand, the car slid back up the road. I acted out my actions in reverse; my hand hovering in the air, held by an absent Hugo - his body a Fixed Point and still in the road - then I was being herded back into the house, backwards.

I sped it up, pulling myself further back. The day whizzed past - sitting on my bed, the conversation with Penny, the party, the day in the flat, my morning with Kloe, then Ryan, my night with Kloe.

I slowed.

I reverse, I watched as Kloe slid down my body, her naked body ashine with sweat, her tongue seemingly drying my chest as she went downwards; in reality, in that moment, she'd just finished giving me a mind-blowing orgasm with her pierced tongue, and was teasing me into a kiss.

The temptation to stay here was immense. To live this moment again.

But I knew what I needed to undo. And so, I continued.

Backwards, through sex I will never forget - and will endeavour to revisit, as a relationship with Kloe is something I couldn't bare the thought of losing - until we were on the sofa. I came on her fingers in reverse, her forehead pressed against mine, and then we were kissing, and then I was on her lap, and then we were side by side.

A relationship undone.

I wondered how many times my father had done this. Watched his relationships, friendships, family fall apart before him. Moments that, once lost, cannot be pulled together again.

I sped up. I couldn't stomach it.

I rushed through my time with Shannon - thankfully, this process seemed to skip whenever I had stopped time, so I watched her cum on the bed, and then we were stood together, and then I was at the door, and then downstairs. Taking away the burden of knowledge from her.

I kept pushing. The walk through town, the bus journey, until I was back at my mother's house. I watched myself put back the videos, watching them in an instant in reverse, until the box was locked again, it's contents unknown to anyone but the dead - and me.

I wondered if I was dead. If that version of me was now dead, and my memory of her wasn't enough to pretend it was a life lived.

A life unlived.

The night came back, and I watched myself sleep, felt myself sleep - so I skipped backwards, until I was peering through my curtains to watch Lorna orgasm. Then, the road and the rain, and her sex on my tongue, and her pluch cheeks on my face, and then the rain and road again.

Pizza with mum.

The bus journey, this time in the other direction, and in twilight. Then sunset.

I untyped texts to Hugo, and back-walked through the town center to the flat.

Again, my heart broke when I saw the look on Shannon's face. Bryson's humiliation. Then, his attack.

And then, like it had never happened, him and Shannon were studying, and I was lurking.

Just like that. Undone.

I kept going, unsatisfied. My sins all laid out, open for my rectification.

The shop, and my lurking outside of it.

The coffee shop, and the lawyer I had humiliated for being a bitch. That one, I didn't regret much. Watching her dishevelled staggering back into her stall become confidence and rudeness bothered me, but I let it go.

I let it all go.

The meeting with Hugo - I was alone, now. He wasn't here for me to wind back, to undo. He was done.

Back, and back, and back I went. To my evening with Penny and Ryan - which flashed by, and mostly consisted of me masturbating - to me walking home, until...

The world came into focus. The blur was gone. My emotions, the physical state of my brain, was quite excited. Upset. Conflicted.

The University cafeteria around me bustled with life, and movement, and voices I didn't care to tune into. I picked up my bag, sucked in a levelling breath, and left.

Time to start over.

CHAPTER TWENTY - THE BEGINNING

The evening air was brisk, and pushed me to half-jog most of the way back to the flat. On the way, my mind hovered on Shannon, Kloe, Ryan and Penny. How they would be, only a few days undone. Shannon wouldn't remember my power. Kloe wouldn't remember our... us.

When I reached the bottom of the street, I saw light - blue and red, pulsing up the hill. As I climbed, the incline a well-traveled bother to me now, I saw the ambulance as it finished it's business, driving away, sirens blaring.

Shannon was on our doorstep, and saw me coming.

'Brooke!' she called, her excitement in her voice infectious. I couldn't help but smile.

'What happened?' I asked, despite knowing exactly what had happened.

'Someone was hit,' she said. 'They're keeping it all very quiet. Ryan thinks it's a conspiracy - there's been people in black suits going round and talking to witnesses, instead of your usual police lot.'

'Fuck,' I said, before she ushered me inside. 'Something smells amazing, though.'

'I'm teaching myself to make pasta sauce from scratch,' she said, buzzing into the kitchen. 'You probably don't need anyone asking you how you are,' she started.

'Nah,' I smiled. 'It's been... a long few days.'

Shannon smiled sadly, as she stirred her tomato-and-garlic sauce pot. I got the cheese from the fridge, and put it in her prep area.

'Cheers,' she said.

And then, I hugged her.

She wasn't expecting it - I could tell by the small yelp she gave. I wasn't even sure I expected it. But I couldn't help it. I just gave her the best squeeze I could.

'Sorry,' I said, pulling away. 'Strange times.'

She smiled, and shook her head. 'Anytime you need a hug - let me know.'

I nodded, and started to stray from the room. There was someone else I needed to speak to tonight. Before anything else unexpected happened.

'Where's Kloe?' I asked.

'In her room,' Shannon said, not taking her eyes off of her sauce. There was a comfort to the normality that I enjoyed for a moment, before slinking away, heading up stairs.

I dropped off my bag in my room, before knocking quietly on Kloe's door. The knot in my stomach was tight, and made of teflon. I had no way of knowing if our tryst was the result of alcohol and horniness, or if coming back and extra day or so earlier than we'd kissed the first time meant that I'd undone something that made her want me, or if-

'Brooke?' Kloe asked, in an unexpected state of undress. Her make-up was missing, and she had a blanket wrapped around her, with bare shoulders poking out from beneath. 'What's up? You're back so soon after-'

She stopped herself, concerned that mentioning my dad's funeral would upset. But I was so far past that.

I just wanted her.

'Can I come in?' I asked, and she nodded, stepping aside. 'I have a confession to make.'

She looked at me a bit funny, closing the door behind me. The bed, stripped of its main cover, complained beneath me as I sat, and Kloe watched me with a wary eye.

'Seeing... what I've seen,' I started, hesitantly balancing the truth and what she knew, 'I think that I should admit when I've been... dishonest. My father kept secrets, and they ruined his life. Ruined our relationship. I don't want to have that. I don't want to die lonely, and unloved.'

Kloe's eyes shimmered as she watched me unload, not knowing whether to move or stay still. As a compromise, she just waited, breathing slightly unevenly, her care for me making her emotional.

'I have never been honest with you,' I said, just jumping in. Not fully. I think you are... gorgeous. And funny. And caring. And, from what I've heard, you're rather good in bed.'

She let out a laugh, disbelieving and surprised. I smiled, too, and looked up at her.

'I...care about you,' I admitted. 'A lot. More than I have for anyone. And I wanted you to know that. Because I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't say anything. And there. It's out there. No going back.'

Not again. Never again.

She looked at me, frozen, lips parted and a tear stain on her cheek.

'Brooke...'

One word, quiet and sad, told me what I was scared to know. Things were different. And I had screwed it.

But I wasn't going back to fix it. Undo it. I wouldn't. Not to her.

I wiped my face, realising I'd been crying, too, and stood. 'Sorry - you didn't need this,' I said. 'It was unfair to-'

But, as I went to pass her and pull the door handle, she stepped in the way.

And all of a sudden, we were there again.

Lips less than an inch from each others'.

Her hand brushed mine, and her warmth shocked me.

'Close your eyes,' she said, and I obeyed. I felt as she opened her arms, the blanket opening between us, as she pulled me in for a hug. I wrapped my arms around her, sank my face into her shoulder, and bawled.

Just bawled.

All of the stress - seeing Hugo die - the attack on her and my friends - the self-hatred after the party - humiliating strangers - causing Bryson's assault of Shannon - all of it just flooded out of me, and Kloe just held me through it.

My fingers dug into the naked skin of her back, our bodies pressed together beneath her blanket, as she just held me in place, letting it all fall out of me.

Eventually, at some point, I managed to gather myself, and I realised as my eyes opened, that she was naked beneath her. She was naked, and she'd let me in, allowed me into her vulnerability like this, just to make me feel better. Just to comfort me.

I pulled away from her, only slightly, and she looked down at me.

'I said eyes shut,' she said.

I smirked, and shut them. I could feel her breath on my lips; her chest against mine; her arms wrapped around my shoulders and settled on my back.