“You got that out of Steve’s head, didn’t you?”
“You shouldn’t have told him then,” he growled. “Your planning sucks.”
“I didn’t tell him. Josie blurted it out before I could tell her not to. I told Josie because I needed to tell someone, and she’s the one person you can’t read. Well, apart from me.”
“Jesus, you really planned to steal the machine and go back and save your brother?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Okay, maybe not agoodidea but once it came into my head, it refused to leave again. What’s the point of having a time machine if you can’t do anything useful with it? Oh, I forgot—you were going to do something useful. You were going to save the world. Or not. In fact, you have no idea what you’re going to do, or what you’re supposed to do, or even if you’re one of the good guys or one of the bad guys. You were just going to blindly do what you were told because... I don’t even knowwhy.”
In a dazzling flash of clarity, he realized she was right.
She smirked. “I usually am.”
He sank down onto the mattress and rubbed his head. All his life, he had aimed for an invisible goal. He’d thought he was some sort of mystical savior. He’d always looked down on people who believed in religion. He’d thought he had a higher calling.
Instead, he suspected he was just the product of a crazy, fucked-up cosmic accident. A job that had gone wrong and hurtled his ancestors into a situation they had no way out of. They’d done their best. And all through the millennia, there hadbeen one strand that had never wavered—they had to complete their mission.
“You know,” Kaitlin murmured. “One of the agents said something. She said that the Tel Group—that’s what they called themselves—always complete their missions.Always.”
The words resonated in his head. How many times had he heard something similar while he was growing up?The mission must be completed. And he saw the truth with startling clarity.
The mission wasn’t some mystical prophecy for saving the world. It was just a job. A job that had gone catastrophically wrong.
He might never know the actual details of the job. Was it for good or evil? Maybe neither. He didn’t know, but from now on, he would keep an open mind.
And with that decision made, he let it go. All of it. The doubts and the fears that he’d got it wrong. That he was recklessly following a course when he had no clue of the destination.
At what point had he started questioning? Probably when Jonas had his accident. Before that, it had all seemed like a fantastic game. He was special, and they had been put there for a reason. An important reason. But then, once he’d been in charge, making the decisions, everything changed.
Jonas had been a father to him, and he’d never questioned the older man’s guidance. He’d promised Jonas, on his deathbed, that he would see the mission through to the end. And he’d done terrible things to try and make his promise come true.
But Jonas had also just been a man, one who was not infallible. He’d never even been out of the Mountains of the Moon. Never seen anything of the world.
In that moment, Kane made a promise to himself. He would no longer forge ahead blindly. He wasn’t giving up. But he would make decisions based on what he knew and not some nebulousprophecy that had come down through generations, distorted along the way until it bore little resemblance to the truth.
One of the things he’d always felt the worst about was not helping Sam. It had likely been too late by the time he was aware of the boy’s existence, but he should have tried.
A hand rested on his thigh, and he opened his eyes. He hadn’t even noticed her sitting down beside him.
“I’m sorry about Sam,” he said.
“So am I. But it was my fault as much as yours. More really. He was mine to protect, and I failed him.”
“You didn’t. You were a child yourself.” He sighed, suddenly tired. “You want the time machine? As far as I’m concerned, it’s yours. Not that it’s mine to give, but you have my blessing. Hell, you even have my help. I’ll help you steal the fucking thing. Or I would, if we knew how it worked. But I have every faith that Christa will get it going. We’ll go back in time, and we’ll save your brother. I reckon that’s as good a use as anything else. After all, maybe that’s what will save the Earth from this cataclysm.”
Chapter 25
Kaitlin watched his face, and she read the thoughts running through his mind. He was holding nothing back from her, she could see it all.
The regret.
But also, the sense of peace that letting go had brought to him.
She thought about returning to a time before they’d taken Sam. She’d rescue him and bring him here...but to what? A world on the edge of chaos and destruction.
And at the back of her mind, Kaitlin knew that they had a role to play in all this. The time machine had a role—maybe not theone for which it had originally traveled back from the future, but an important role all the same.
They might not be saviors of the universe or anything even vaguely similar, but they could play a major part in avoiding a disaster that would save the world’s population and most of the Earth from destruction. And maybe change the future, where these Tel agents would not exist. And who knew what implications that would have to their own existence.
