Chapter 44
Rayna
“Why didn’t you ever tell us the truth?” George asked, sitting next to Rayna around the Griffins’ dining room table at the back of their farmhouse.
She, Victor, Dominic, George, and River had arrived straight there from the lab after Victor had insisted Monty and Ash go home.
It all seemed according to some pre-discussed plan because Winnie and Declan had been expecting them.
Rayna’s dad was on the phone too, though it was still the early hours of the morning where he lived in Jahandar.
“NDAs only last a maximum of twelve years before they have to be renewed,” Rayna said, almost in frustration. “Which means if you all signed them, they would’ve expired last year. And if you didn’t re-sign them, then you had all year to tell us. So why didn’t you?”
She frowned between Victor, Declan, and Winnie sitting opposite her, Dominic, and George, with River in the end seat, then down to Declan’s phone in front of her, where her dad, Carlos, was on speaker.
“Rayna,” her dad said with a raspy sigh.
“Your mum and your parents, George, were only really lucid for a few hours after the accident. But they made it very clear to me and Victor, to your mum’s parents, George, that they didn’t want you two to know what had actually happened unless it was absolutely necessary.
Even without the NDAs, we’d agreed to never tell you, but…
circumstances have changed. If Dominic and you have any chance of finding a way, then you need to know the truth. ”
“How long have you known about me and Dominic?” she asked quietly.
Dominic had spoken to her dad a few times in passing when they’d video-called or rang each other, but she hadn’t told her father the nature of their relationship. He seemed to know anyway.
“Since that first video call nearly two months ago. It terrified me at first. I had a go at Victor for allowing it to happen. But…” Her dad paused.
“Gosh, am I still terrified of losing you. A part of me still wants to convince you not to do this, but I don’t want you to think of me as the dad who doesn’t want his daughter to be happy.
I’ve only ever wanted your happiness, Rayna. ”
Her dad had done a lot to make sure she was happy. Even going as far as giving her up to the man who’d been engaged to his ex-wife just so she could stay and live her life exactly as she’d always dreamed of doing. It couldn’t have been easy back then, and she understood why he was scared even now.
“I won’t allow anything to happen to Rayna, Mr Faez. I vow that to you,” Dominic said firmly.
“Don’t make promises you don’t yet know you can keep, Dominic,” her dad muttered, but Rayna could hear the smile in his calm voice.
He was right. They didn’t know what they were in for yet. And Rayna could see in the tight lines of Dominic’s face that it frustrated him. He wanted to argue, but realistically, he couldn’t. She still placed her hand over his, silently telling him she appreciated the sentiment. A lot.
She didn’t need his protection, but she knew he’d rearrange the planets in the solar system to ensure she was safe and taken care of. She was quickly realising she’d do the same for him too.
“So,” George then said, a frown weighing heavily on his freckled face. “What is the truth? What actually happened that day? What’s a Rupture? And shouldn’t we be at the lab instead of here if we’re going to overcome Dominic’s one?”
Victor exchanged a look with Declan. “We’re here because you need to understand what happened before we start figuring out how Dominic can stay, and I can’t explain it all without Declan and Winnie’s help,” Victor said.
“They worked with Yasmin, Frank, and Samara on their research on Ruptures for some time, since they’d already overcome one themselves before. ”
“Wait, what do you mean?” George asked, sounding as befuddled as Rayna felt.
Victor glanced at Declan, Uncle Declan to his wife, and Winnie’s lips lifted in a secret smile.
Rayna narrowed her eyes as the cogs of her mind smoked from how fast they were trying to solve the riddle of that look. When they jammed on the answer, her jaw came apart.
“Aunt Win,” she uttered. “Are you…are you from the past?”
Before she’d completed the question, she already knew the answer.
Looking at her aunt, it was obvious, actually.
Glaringly so. Winnie’s mannerisms, her way of speaking, her style, her.
Everything hinted at a life not originally started in the present.
And now that she thought about it, Rayna couldn’t remember ever seeing any pictures of Winnie from before her marriage to Declan.
Why had she never questioned that before?
As if to prove the point, Winnie sighed dramatically, an errant blonde curl slipping against her temple. “It seems the cat is finally out of the bag, darling.”
River’s mouth dropped, George made a stifled sound of shock, and Dominic perked up.
“It seems so,” Declan replied with a loving smile. “It’s probably a good time to tell them that you were once my Study too.”
Rayna didn’t think her jaw could drop any lower, but it did.
Winnie chuckled. “Oh dear. Look at their faces.”
“I didn’t know this,” Rayna’s dad muttered to himself, still on speaker.
“But–but–but you, and you…you,” George stammered, his pointed finger moving between their uncle and aunt.
“I guess I should start at the beginning for it all to make sense,” Declan said as he rested his elbows on the table.
“This rule—No Study under any circumstance will be permitted to stay, blah, blah, blah—didn’t exist when I joined the project straight after my master’s, more than thirty-odd years ago.
There were actually several cases we were taught about, and one that I witnessed too, where Studies were allowed to stay and live the rest of their lives among us with new identities given to them by the project. ”
He encased Winnie’s hand around his elbow with his own, and she cuddled closer to his side. “Winnie was one of those Studies. The last one, in fact.” He explained, “I’d been a historian for two, nearly three years when Sanjana, a Study Scout, brought her to the present.”
“Winnie Imani Fisher from 580 PR,” Winnie introduced herself proudly. “I was the twenty-year-old daughter of an established sea merchant. I’d travelled all across Neves on my father’s ship before he passed away and left me orphaned.”
“Similar to Dominic’s case,” Declan continued, “Winnie’s case consisted of a case study report and a longer project, so I paired up with Sanjana to work with them…and we fell in love.”
Warm affection shone from them both as they shared a moment.
“It shouldn’t have been a problem for her to stay. But at the time, there was a scientist, Dr Onu Wilson, who’d just presented a new theory to the Board, suggesting that taking someone out of their place in history could cause problems for our timeline. A Rupture, he called it.”
“His theory was that history’s one straight line of events”—Declan drew a line with his index finger on the surface of the table—“where certain people have to be and things have to happen. Take someone out of that set series”—he traced a curve up from the middle of the invisible line—“and it creates a Rupture.
A tear that could cause a series of events that deviate from the original timeline.
“Though eventually…” He continued to curve the Rupture in an upside-down U until it reached the first line. “The new events will return to converge with the original timeline, and history will continue on the path it was intended to take.”
He stole a quick glance at Winnie. “Unfortunately, Dr Wilson also warned the Board that if they weren’t careful who and how many people they let stay, a series of multiple Ruptures could occur that might not restore themselves, causing a break in the natural flow of time.
Which could create a new, unpredictable timeline, messing up our own. ”
There was a moment of silence as Declan Griffin let them process what he’d said.
“That obviously scared the Board,” he then said.
“They began talking about stopping Studies from staying altogether. But we were determined to make them see otherwise about Winnie, so we went to speak to Dr Wilson. He had us tell him everything we knew about her past and present in a hope of predicting what could happen if we took her out of her time.”
Winnie sat a little straighter. “You see, my mother passed when I was a child, and when my father did too, the ship, our home, everything went to a distant male cousin who made it very clear he wanted me gone. He didn’t care where; he just simply wasn’t willing to take on the responsibility of me.
I had no other relatives I knew of, so I was planning to buy cheap passage to another state when Sanjana found me and offered me a short escape. ”
“We took what we knew to the Board,” her husband said, “but they still hesitated, even though Winnie had very little ties to her life in the past.”
Winnie patted his arm playfully. “So your uncle here thought it’d be a good idea to sock two Board members in the face. But it meant they gave us more time, and thankfully so. Because we found out I was pregnant at my next checkup.”
Declan smiled reminiscently. “We married a week later. By that point, the Board had no choice but to let her stay.”
Their story ended with a pleasant quiet, and a tiny smile sat on Rayna’s lips.
With how cheesy and romantic her aunt and uncle were, it was no surprise their love story was something out of one of those romance novels Erin read daily. She would’ve been cooing and crying and rolling around on the floor had she been there to hear about it.
George shook his head in disbelief. “That’s just…”
“Scandalous?” Winnie offered with a wiggle of her brows.
George scoffed and nodded. “Yeah. That.” He nudged Rayna. “And here the Board is calling you and Dominic a scandal. But the scandal you started holds nothing on them.”