The Eighth Guardian

CHAPTER 18

I whip around. Forest, as far as the eye can see. Holy shit. How far back did I go? When was Boston founded? Sixteen hundred . . . something. Oh no.

My mind flashes to what they told me before, about how the farther back you go, the more time elapses in the present. A minute four hundred years ago really passes two days in the present. Fifteen minutes is a month. What if I’m five hundred years back? Six hundred? I choke.

I open the watch face again and turn the year dial forward. I give it two full turns. That’s a hundred and twenty years. I turn again when—

POP!

What was that? I drop the watch, and the pendant thunks to my chest. I whip around, hugging the stolen files tight.

It’s Green.

I gasp. The tracker! They’re tracking me!

Green holds up a taser. “Don’t move!” he yells.

My hand fumbles for the chain of the necklace. I find the watch and snap it shut.

Green disappears, and I’m plunged into darkness. My body is yanked apart again as I fly up into the future. I scream. It hurts. It hurts so much.

I land again and open my eyes. Where am I?

I’m not in a forest. I’m in Boston. Colonial Boston. It has to be. It looks exactly like it did when Zeta and I went to the Boston Massacre. I’m even standing in front of Hancock Manor. I have to be sometime in the eighteenth century.

Why am I standing here? I have to move! I tear across a dirt-covered Beacon Street into Boston Common while already turning the year dial.

POP!

Here we go again!

I whip my head around as I run. It’s Violet.

“Iris, stop!” she yells.

“Screw you!” I slam the watch shut.

I hear Violet’s voice screaming, “You can’t run forever!” as I fly through darkness. Pain rips at my entire body.

I’m in Boston Common again. It doesn’t look that different. There are a few more buildings and more people around, and—oh no. People around. They’re screaming. Why are they screaming? And then I realize. It’s me. They’re screaming at me. Because I’m wearing clothes from 1962 and have just materialized out of thin air.

I keep running with my head down. People jump out of my way. They’re afraid of me.

POP!

No! Not again!

I look back as I run. Orange is on my trail, and he’s fast. He’s too fast. I pop open the watch face and spin the year dial. I need to get closer to the present! I don’t fit in here.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Orange yells behind me.

I snap the watch shut. I didn’t turn it nearly enough. I’m only going a few years. I fly for a few seconds. My body barely has time to register the pain when it stops.

I gasp when I land. The Boston before me hasn’t changed that much, but there are even more people now. They scream. A woman faints. I throw myself out of Boston Common and onto Tremont Street. There are horses clomping through the cobblestone streets.

Violet is right. I can’t run forever. I have to get this tracker out of my arm. But how?

And then I see a man selling cheese and eggs from a wooden pushcart. There’s a knife sitting right beside him.

Oh my God. Can I do this?

POP!

I have to. I spin the year dial a half turn, grab the knife, and shut the lid as Yellow lurches toward me.

My body explodes again. I can’t take this.

I’m gasping for breath on the side of Tremont Street. People are still yelling. It’s a never-ending symphony of screams, a cacophony of horrors, shrieks following me through time. I run down a side street. I don’t know when I am. Sometime when women wore long dresses and men wore top hats. But there’s no time to process. I have to do this.

I yell and plunge the knife into my forearm. Pain explodes through my entire body. I scream like I’ve never screamed before, and people on the street run away from me with horrified looks on their faces. I twist the knife into my arm and choke back tears.

I don’t have much more time. A few seconds.

Blood spills out onto my light-pink sweater, and I drop the knife and press on the wound. I move the skin around, looking, searching. Every movement is agony. My vision is getting blurry, but I focus on something green and metallic. The size of a computer chip. I blink. That’s it! I pull it out.

POP!

I hold on to the tracker with my left hand while spinning the year, month, and day dials with my right.

“Iris!”

My heart skips a beat. I don’t need to look. I can tell by the voice. It’s Indigo.

“Iris, stop running!” He holds up a taser as he charges toward me. His eyes are sad. Regretful. “I don’t want to have to . . .”

I push myself up from the wall, cradling my blood-soaked arm. I sway to the side. I’ve never been this dizzy before.

“You don’t have to,” I tell him. “We’re done here.”

I throw the blood-spattered tracker at his feet and shut the watch. And I’m gone.