The Way Back (Champions of the Crystal Book 4)

Chapter 1: Out of Time

Cover by D. Denise Dianaty

It was a gray and gloomy day, hardly cherry blossom weather, Sabrina Devon thought as she hurried up New Jersey Avenue on a chilly mid-April day. The sun had been shining at her Alexandria apartment, but by the time she'd reached Capitol Hill the clouds had rolled in on a strong, wet wind. She hoped it wouldn't start raining before she reached the office; she had left her umbrella at home, and it wouldn't do to show up at her first meeting of the day wet as well as late.

No such luck, she thought sourly as the first large drops fell. Well, I should've expected it.
The morning had started out normally, but now, after a bus breakdown and a bomb threat that closed a Metro station on her route—necessitating a thirteen-block detour on foot—she felt that this particular Monday had it in for her. She longed to stop and rest her feet but didn't dare, swearing instead to go from low heels to flats once and for all.

She was soaked by the time she reached her office building. She swiped her access card through the reader in the elevator, and it obligingly started upwards. It stopped at the sixth floor, and Sabrina made her way to the dark wood double doors with the discreet gold plaque reading "The Whitmore Foundation."

The young man behind the reception desk just inside looked up and grinned at her. "Good morning, Miss Devon. Rough day already?"

"Just don't even ask, Todd. At the rate it's going, I expect to be taken hostage by terrorists before lunch. Is my nine o'clock here yet?"

He consulted his computer. "No, your nine o'clock canceled. Lucky you."

"Not really," Sabrina groaned. "It took me a month to get that meeting. Well, back to square one."

Todd looked sympathetic. "You've had four calls already this morning. Mr. Feddemore left for New York, and Miss Cameron's called in sick."

"Great," Sabrina sighed. "More work for me. Goody. Not serious, is it?"

"Just the flu, she thinks."

"How are you coming with that presentation for the Board?"

"I've got a call in to tech support. The computer crashes every time I launch PowerPoint."

"Any more good news?"

"Well, the world's still full of poverty and violence," Todd noted. "Means we'll have jobs for a while."

"You bring such joy to my morning," Sabrina said dryly, heading down the corridor to her office. Once safely inside, she sank into the chair behind her desk and kicked off her shoes, glaring at the rain spattering against her window as she turned on her computer.

Her e-mail in-box was full, as it usually was; e-mail was her preferred method of overseas communication, and the Whitmore Foundation's mission "to eradicate poverty and violence" often required her to communicate with people around the world. The Foundation was a young organization, started only ten years ago as a bequest of the wealthy philanthropist Clara Whitmore. Sabrina had been hired five years ago to start up the Foundation's political activities, fresh from a two-year stint as a Senate staffer, a job she had landed immediately after earning her master's degree in political science.

Sabrina sighed and looked at the portrait of Clara Whitmore that hung on the wall, then down at her desk where a photo of her brother, Captain Scott Devon of the U.S. Air Force, grinned at her. She had started her graduate studies in psychology, the subject in which she'd earned her bachelor's degree, but after a single semester had switched to political science. The move had surprised all her friends, but Scotty had only laughed and teased her about the addictions of power. He was the only one who had understood. But then, he was the only one who knew that she had once been Regent of another planet.