OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 69: Slade's Grand Finale. Maybe. (Lillabit)

"Wait!" I yelped--to all three men.

Instead of going for his gun(s), Callahan swung his golden-glass eyes back toward me, and he snapped his fingers a few times. "Chop chop, little lady. We're losing light."

"You haven't explained what happened to Maddie and the others." The ones who weren't slower than bullets?

"I was about to demonstrate what happened with her. With her, not to her. Thanks for killing the build-up. You have no grasp of the dramatic, do you?"

"Not like you do." This time I definitely was not lying, either. "Is she the ghost?"

"Is she the... what?" Callahan barked out a laugh, now completely distracted, which was probably a good thing. "Lil, there's no such thing as ghosts."

Who would have thought? The one thing besides a Y-chromosome that he had in common with my husband.

"I know that." Sort of. Partly. "That's why I think there's something time-travelly going on. All along the cattle trail, we've been catching glimpses of a woman dressed in white. Just glimpses, though, before she vanishes. It's almost always at night, too."

Callahan stared at me, motionless for the first time since his appearance tonight.

"Sled?" I prompted.

"Time travelly, you say?" He was double-checking my point, not correcting my word usage.

"Well it would be a pretty big coincidence for the same cattle drive to have time travelers and ghosts, wouldn't it?" Throw in some sparkly vampires, and we'd have a paranormal trifecta! "But even if it's a time traveler, something's gone terribly wrong. She's having trouble breathing. Like this." I demonstrated the wheezy effort I'd heard outside the tent, the frosty morning that I passed out.

Beside me, Jacob flinched. He'd heard it too, after all, and it had been creepy. Or maybe the effort of holding the rifle so still, so long, was getting to him.

"Like Maddie might sound, if she...." Say it. "If she died in the fire."

"Okay, firstly? Someone can't wear the same clothes every time they, you know, apparate. Not unless they have a whole closet-full of them somewhere, waiting. We come through naked, remember? Except for this little beauty here." He flicked one hand toward his ear. "Have you heard about my stud?"

"It's so much a part of you that it came through too."

"Oh. You've heard. Well, yeah--just like our fillings do. Just like the little bun in your oven should slip safely home, if you decide to risk it. Assuming he has the same blood type as you. Huh...." His mouth twisted. "I hadn't thought of that part."

A wave of nausea hit me at the idea of returning through time without my unborn baby. "You said something about genetic markers. How would anyone at A Closer Look know about my genetic...." But then I answered my own question. "The office blood drive."

"Give the girl a prize. Oh well--that stuff's for the real eggheads. As long as Maddie thought the l'il anachronism would come with you, chances are it will. It's not like my ear-stud or fillings have the same genetic markers as me, right?"

Chances are? No way could I take such a gamble! "Never mind. I'm staying here, never slipping again. Not if it could endanger my baby, and certainly not after I have my baby. So I don't need to know how."

I thought I heard Jacob, beside me, sigh. It was hard to tell, with his spot-on impression of a war memorial.

"Too bad, 'cause I'm telling you anyway. For all you know, smallpox could sweep through town and kill John Wayne and John Wayne Jr. both. You want to be left here all alone, with no hope of ever going home again? Seriously?"