Chapter 19 Mariella
I wake on the floor beside Rose’s bed, pressure lingering over my temples.
Parker’s sitting beside me, no longer translucent, but vivid and whole.
My heart stutters at the sight of him, his blond brows drawn in, a bloody hand pressed over the wound on his torso.
He lets out a breath when our eyes lock, but the tension in his body lingers.
I push myself into a sitting position and lean against Rose’s bed frame. Every muscle aches like I’ve run a marathon. “How long was I asleep?”
“Over an hour.” His mouth tenses and he averts his gaze, but then it’s back on me. “Why didn’t you stop?” he asks. His nostrils are flared, the back of his neck red. “Your nose was bleeding.”
I touch my fingers to the dried blood on my face. “Are you… angry with me?” I ask.
He turns away as if he can’t stand to look at me. “I’m angry at myself. I never should’ve put you in that position. If something happened to you—”
“I’m fine. And it was my decision to try.”
He shakes his head, still avoiding my stare, but I dip my head and force our eyes to meet. “Parker. I’m fine.”
He studies me for a moment, and I offer a closed-lip smile to emphasize my point.
His shoulders drop. “Never do that again.”
“Promise.” I eye his blood-slicked hand, still gripping his oozing wound, and my throat constricts. He must be in agony, but all I can do is sit here, uselessly watching him bleed until Rose wakes. When will that be? Did I do enough to help her? Why is she still unconscious?
A beat of sweat rolls down Parker’s temple, his golden skin paler than before. “How are you?” I ask. Please let him be okay.
“Still here.” He smiles, suppressing his wince when he stands.
I crane my neck. “And Rose?” She’s curled on her side, sleeping soundlessly.
“She looks terrible because of the blood, but she’ll be alright. Thanks to you.”
I press my hand to her forehead. “Her fever’s broken.” The touch rouses her, but she slips back to sleep, her forehead smooth and full lips parted. “I’ve never seen her this peaceful. She’s normally kind of scary,” I whisper.
Parker stares at me flatly. “What are you talking about? She’s a placid dream.”
I laugh into the back of my hand, my heart swelling when he laughs with me. “I’m going to clean some of the blood off of her.”
Standing on wobbly legs, I slip into the bathroom and wash the blood from my face.
When I return to the bedroom with supplies for Rose, Parker is sitting on the edge of his bed.
I slip off Rose’s jeans and black, long-sleeved shirt, leaving her in a cropped tank top.
The tip of a tattoo extends beneath the elastic.
Parker sits in silence as I wipe the blood from Rose’s body, but my skin tingles with awareness under his heavy stare. When I’m finished, we leave Rose to rest and move into their tiny living room. The book he asked me to keep safe remains on the dining table, his blood soaked into the leather.
“Must be important,” I say, tilting my head toward it. I pull up a chair and Parker leans against the table beside me.
“We’re hoping it holds the answers to getting my traveling back. It’s what we left for.”
“Where did you go?”
“Five years from now,” he says casually, as if it’s normal to travel to another year.
I’d meant my question literally and was expecting a place, not a year.
Frankly, with all of Parker and Rose’s secrets, I’m shocked he answered at all.
I can’t comprehend anyone being able to jump between one year and another, let alone five.
I trace Parker’s line of sight outside the kitchen window.
“Has much changed between now and then?”
“A bit.” His mouth pulls to the side.
“Did you see me?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Parker’s eyes widen and he sits a little straighter. “No.”
My chest sinks. He and Rose have been here for six months, yet he returned to his time and didn’t see me. Was our future relationship simply an amicable one?
“Nothing memorable.”
The words still sting.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Well… we were there for such a short time, to get McGregor’s journal, so we didn’t see anyone.” He shifts his position and flinches.
“I wish there was something I could do to help you,” I say. “If only I could touch you, I could put pressure on your wound or at least bandage it. Give you painkillers. You really need stitches.”
The corner of his mouth pulls into a cheeky grin, tugging on my heart, and lower in my abdomen. “You’re not worried about me, are you?” He leans toward me, irises the color of warm honey. “If I could touch you, the last thing I’d be concerned about is the wound on my chest.”
My breath hitches in my throat, and I spend a moment lost in those eyes. “Why is it you can touch Rose and the book, but you can’t touch me?” I clear my throat. “Or open a door?”
“I can touch Rose because she’s holding me here, and the book because it’s from my time.”
“But you can lean against this table?” I gesture before me.
He runs his hand along the light pine surface. “Yes, but I can’t move it or feel the texture of the wood.” A drop of blood falls from the hand pressed against his wound, disappearing before it hits the wooden floor.
I swallow, coaxing moisture into my mouth. “What happened?”
“We were caught stealing that journal.” He inclines his head toward the blood-soaked book. “Rose traveled us away, but the bullet had already hit. I’m sorry, Ella, I shouldn’t be dragging you into this.”
“It’s okay. I’m glad I was here to help Rose. Can subconscious travel affect someone in the same way as normal time travel?”
Parker frowns. “I don’t think so. Subconscious travel happens when you’re sleeping and your brain’s relaxed, so it exerts little energy.
It can make you tired and give you a headache if you’re traveling multiple times a night.
Plus, emotionally charged memories draw you in, and the echo can be intense. ”
“What does that mean? The echo?”
“When you travel into your past, you—and anyone you’ve brought with you—feel an echo of the emotions you experienced in that moment in time.
It can be strong for some travelers, and not so much for others.
Neurovida teaches you to dull it down, but if the memory is emotional, the echo can be hard to suppress. ”
Flashes of my dreams rush through my mind.
My joy when I’m in my mother’s warm embrace or the nervous excitement flooding me when I kiss Parker.
My cheeks heat, my heart falling into that flustered rhythm only he can evoke.
Does he know how he consumes my nights, like a thief holding my subconscious hostage?
“Before you knew about time travel, did you subconsciously travel?”
“Yes, but I thought I was dreaming. And you can call it sub-t. That’s what we all called it at Neurovida.”
I peer over at him. “Did you ever sub-t and see me?”
“You’ve never asked me that before,” he says, a hint of surprise in his voice.
I sit back in my chair. “This is so strange. You talk to me as if you’ve known me for years, but we’ve only just met, and I still know nothing about you.”
Parker eases back against the table, surveying me with a gleam in his eye. “What do you want to know?”
I want to know everything about you. The thought hits me at once.
Every tick, habit and mannerism. Where did he grow up?
What was his life like before Neurovida?
Before he was running for his life? I want to watch him wake up in the morning and put himself together, glimpsing those private moments no one else gets to see.
I study the sloping curve of his top lip, the cocky crinkle beside his eyes. “Will you answer truthfully?”
“What are you insinuating?” he asks, feigning offense. “I’ll answer your questions. As long as I’m not telling you anything that will get me into trouble with Rose later.”
“Fine.” I cross my arms and lean them on the table. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” he answers immediately.
“And how old were you when you were recruited?”
“Twenty-one.”
I worry my bottom lip as we stare at each other for a beat, his amber eyes heating when they flicker to my mouth. “Had you seen me in your sub-t before we met for the first time?”
He groans. “Thought I’d dodged that question. No, it wasn’t until after we’d become Alphas that I saw you in my sub-t.”
I mask my disappointment. Obviously, my unhealthy infatuation with Parker isn’t reciprocated. “Alphas?”
He glances at the bedroom door again. “It’s the name of our group at Neurovida. Alpha because we were the first group of our kind.”
“Alpha, huh? Sounds a little pompous.”
Parker’s golden eyes dance with amusement. “That’s what you said when we thought up the name.”
It’s unnerving that he’s met a version of myself I’m yet to become and has recollections of conversations I’m yet to experience. “When we met at Neurovida, did I ever mention any of this? You and Rose showing up and asking for my blood?”
We both ignore the chime of my phone.
“No. As far as I knew, we’d never met before your first day at Neurovida.”
I imagine meeting a younger version of Parker for the first time, and a smile plays on my lips. “What’s your last name?”
“It’s just Parker,” he says with a shrug.
“Parker who?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “When you get recruited, you pick a name, and mine’s Parker.”
My mouth drops open. “Parker isn’t your real name?”
“No,” he says, his gaze dipping to my hand fiddling with the charm on my necklace. A haze passes over his eyes, but he blinks and it’s gone.
“Well, what is it? Is it—Jimmy?”
A brief laugh escapes him. “No. Please never call me that.”
“Then why does Rose call you Jimmy?” Does she know his real name, or does he keep secrets from her too?
Parker groans, tilting his head to the ceiling. “Because she’s a monster. Look, it’s a term of… endearment, for lack of a better word. It might not make sense now, but when you get recruited, you pick an alias, take the oath, and everything in your life before that moment becomes a secret.”