“How did that happen?” Aila asked herself. She talked to the dog all the time without response, why not talk to herself?
“I dinnae ken anything ye dinnae.”
As the one without an injury, Aila climbed the ladder and pushed and pulled to no avail. They were locked in. “Could it have closed behind us? Why would it do that?” She climbed back down and searched the wall for a lever, any indication that it could be opened. Nothing.
She turned to the other her, who’d sunk down to sit with her back against the wall, hugging Rab as if he were the teddy bear they’d slept with as children. It wasn’t like looking in a mirror. Her hair was tangled and hanging down her back. A vicious looking bruise forming on her tear-streaked cheek. Aila sat down so Rab was between them. A calming influence on two troubled souls. “What happened?”
She listened to a recap of the series of events, including the discovery that Derne was from another future and acquainted with Donell. Brought here to stop the first duke from gaining his title. To change the future to suit his or someone else’s nefarious purpose? At any rate, she believed this was the truth they were meant to reveal. The truth that had kept Derne from prevailing in his mission almost fifty years before.
“Like that man Brontë came up against when she first went to the past. The one who wanted to kill her great-great-grandfather. Wyndom.” She snapped her fingers. “Heath Wyndom. He knew about Donell, too. And was trying to undo whatever it is Donell is after.”
“And we’re just another pawn.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“At least ye’ll get the chance.”
Aila looked up at the one and only escape route. She hoped she’d get the chance. Why hadn’t she insisted on telling Finn about the statue so he would know where to find her? How long would it be before they figured it out?
“How long did it take for yer battery to run down?”
“I hope it was long enough. At least ye’ll have Rabbie.”
Minutes passed. One phone died leaving only the single light to comfort them. They ran through scenarios to go back in time again, to find a moment where they could get out. Given the narrow window of time available, she could think of none that would get her past an armed man, out of the tunnels, and into the passage where an unknown threat still lie with any reasonable guarantee of success.
“We have a gun now, too.”
She held up the pistol by the butt with two fingers as if it were drenched in the plague. They figured out how to release the magazine and found five bullets inside when it could have held a dozen more. The other her counted them off as those used to shoot her Rab.
“Derne must have used it over the years,” she said. “Killing Boyce’s parents?”
“Nay, he said…. Shite!” The other her stiffened, wide-eyed. “Derne said—”
In a blink, Aila was alone and the reality of her situation sunk in even deeper. Hugging Rab, she curled her fingers into his fur as he licked her cheek. Aye, at least she had him. Thank God he was here with her. Already, he’d saved her once when Derne had pointed the gun at her. Now he would save her sanity, too. She hated being alone.
Aila checked her phone. Seven percent.
Not long now.
When she was younger, one of her mother’s boyfriends would lock Aila in her room for hours on end because he didn’t want the responsibility of watching her while her mother was at work. Often, if Aila were too noisy, he’d lock her in a dark closet.
She’d been lying to herself when she’d first arrived here that the only thing she’d ever feared was her Great Aunt Kay. She had a slew of suppressed fears, all of which were making their existence known.
Autophobia, fear of being alone. Her therapist said the phobia had prompted her endless string of relationships, all aimed at avoidance of the issue. Nyctophobia, fear of the dark. Though Aila had never been able to determine if it was the dark she feared or the man who’d put her in it, the result had been the same. She and her therapist had debated the correlating diagnosis of claustrophobia. Aila would argue it wasn’t enclosed spaces that got to her, but the fear that she would never escape them.
They devoured her now. Slithering over her like a portent of doom. With a trembling breath, she tried to think about something else. Anything. What had she — the other she — been saying about Derne? He said what? Why in fifty years he hadn’t used all the bullets before now? Aila guessed it was because he hadn’t wanted to waste them since he had no idea how long he’d been here. Maybe he’d kept them for himself. A way out, so to speak.
She could use them against Derne if she could figure out a way to time a perfect attack. What a laugh! Aye, she could figure out which end of the gun was the lethal end just as one could determine the wrong end of a dagger. She’d lived her entire life between two gun-controlled countries. Other than what she’d seen at the cinema or on the telly, she had no idea how to do anything beyond pulling the trigger.
She wasn’t going to pin her life on doing it right.
What she was willing to pin her life on was Finn. Aila clung to her phone as the battery ticked down to a single percent of battery life. A countdown to the midnight hour. She couldn’t have felt worse if she were strapped to an electric chair.
Then the light died, leaving her blind in the inky blackness and she knew she’d been wrong. Aila’s chest ached with apprehension, tears burning her eyes. She hugged Rab close, praying his warmth would banish the chilling fear.
“I love ye, Rabbie,” she whispered as she clung to the dog. “But I pray yers is no’ the last face I ever see.”
It wouldn’t be. She might have a few fears, but the one thing she wasn’t afraid of anymore was putting her trust and faith in a man. Finn would find her. She knew it.
