Page 47 of Reversal of Fate

25 – Back to the Future

Los Angeles, Monday, September 29, 12:45 a.m.

“Fuck!” Carter cursed.

Julie stared at Carter, panic tightening her throat. “We have to leave the car here.”

She opened the car door, but before she was able to get out, another car whizzed by, sending a shockwave through her. Her heart raced.

“My side,” Carter instructed, opened his door, and got out.

Then he helped Julie crawl over to the passenger side, and step out of the car. Together, they ran along the shoulder, up to the end of the exit ramp to the closest street. There, they stopped. Julie oriented herself.

“We can get an Uber,” she said, pulling her phone from her handbag.

“A what?” Carter asked.

“A ride service, like a taxi,” she explained, while already pulling up her account to request a ride. The app pinpointed her location, and she typed in the address of the fraternity house.

Moments later, the app indicated that the system was looking for an available car. The wheel spun and spun.

“Come on!” she urged the app.

“What’s taking so long?” Carter asked, looking at the phone.

“I don’t know.”

A few more seconds that felt like minutes, and the app finally came back with the result. The next car available was almost forty minutes away. And from experience she knew that this was just an estimate. The pickup time could change depending on the traffic the driver encountered.

“That’s cutting it too close,” he said. “How about the bus?”

Julie shook her head. “After midnight, they run only every hour, and there’s no direct line from here to the campus. We’d have to change at least once.”

“Then we have to run.”

Julie punched the fraternity house’s address into her map app. It was over three miles to walk, which the app calculated at an hour and ten minutes. Running would get them there faster.

She motioned to a pedestrian crossing. “That way. Sepulveda Boulevard will take us toward Westwood.”

Carter took her hand, and they started running. Julie wasn’t a particularly accomplished jogger. In fact, it had been a while since she had gone for a run, and she felt it now. She was out of shape. She was glad for each traffic light that forced them to stop for a few moments until it was safe to cross. She became more and more winded, but she didn’t complain. She knew what was at stake. She could rest once they arrived in the future.

“You okay?” Carter asked with a sideways glance at her, without slowing down.

“I’m good.” She didn’t tell him that she felt breathless, but the way he looked at her she could tell that he knew.

“We’ll make it, Julie, I promise you. Even if I have to carry you the last bit.”

She hoped it didn’t come to that, and continued pushing herself. They’d already crossed underneath Interstate 10, which meant they were already in Westwood. At the next major intersection, they turned right into Ohio Avenue, then a few blocks later turned north again onto Veteran Boulevard, the road running parallel to the Los Angeles National Cemetery, which now came into sight.

Carter pointed toward the cemetery. “We can’t be far now. That’s where the time jump deposited me.”

She nodded, then pointed to the right, where the streets were going up a gentle incline. “Gayley Avenue is over there.”

The gentle incline of the side streets they soon ran along, didn’t feel that gentle to Julie right now. She was out of breath, huffing and puffing.

“You have to go on without me,” she said.

He looked at her. “I can’t leave you here.”