There was brave, then there was suicidal.
“Hurry up!” he yelled at me, keeping the gun trained on the massive, bearlike creature coming to get him.
I had to do something before Lewis got killed, but what?
Oh, wait. I’d give him the money and he’d leave. Okay. I could do that.
I took my key and opened the register. Dixie had been robbed more than once, so she insisted on using a register that required a key to get into the cash drawer.
The man grabbed my hair and shoved my face toward it. Now he was just showing off.
“Put the cash in a bag,” he said.
We didn’t have any bags at the register, so I opted for a takeout box. He didn’t seem to mind. I took cash out by the handfuls and stuffed it into the cardboard box. The adrenaline pumping through my body was giving me hot flashes. I felt a line of perspiration along my upper lip and under my eyes. Even more so when I heard sirens in the distance.
Someone had already called the cops, and my first concern was for Mr. V and his family. What if their captors thought the authorities were coming for them? What would they do?
I was only half finished – the big bills were stashed underneath the cash bin – and Lewis was getting closer by the millisecond.
“Keep coming, bitch,” the robber said to him.
The absolute determination in Lewis’s expression made me groan aloud. I sped up, hurrying to get the robber out of the café.
Just as I finished and closed the takeout box, the gun went off with an earsplitting bang, and my life flashed before my eyes.
11
I was dropped as a baby.
Into a pool of awesomeness and badassery.
—T-SHIRT
Or, well, the last month of my life flashed before my eyes. It was full of regrets and bad decisions. For example, I totally should have eaten that York Peppermint Patty that fell on the floor of my apartment. The three-second rule only applied when other people were around. No one would have known it sat there for at least a minute before I noticed.
No. No. I would’ve known. I would’ve had to live with myself and —
I blinked. Squinted. Blinked again. No one was moving. No one was screaming or ducking to get away from the gunfire. In fact, no one was doing much of anything. I scanned the café, the frozen faces that swam around me. Everyone looked like posed manikins in an art exhibit on the American experience. My ears rang, probably from the blast, but it sounded like I was underwater.
Then, in a moment of absolute clarity, my jaw fell to my knees. I’d stopped time.
I really was a time traveler!
I closed my eyes. This rocked so hard.
My lids sprang open again as all the implications of such a gift paraded through my mind. I wondered what time period I was actually from. It couldn’t have been that long ago. I didn’t say things like thee and thou, and I’d known how to use a coffeemaker from Day One as if it were ingrained in my DNA.
But I was most definitely a time traveler. I even knew the lingo. Quantum mechanics. Hyperspace. Flux capacitor.
Hell.
Yes.
That’s why no one knew me. I probably hadn’t been born yet!
I wiggled my way out of the robber’s hold. Finally getting a good look at him, I took note of every aspect of his face that I could. I wanted to be able to describe him to a sketch artist should the need arise.
The tip of the gun had a fiery blast of powder exploding out of it. And a few inches away, a bullet hung in midair. It seemed surreal. Enigmatic. Unfathomable.
I walked around to examine its trajectory. It was headed straight for Lewis’s heart. I doubted his cousin would really shoot him, but the odds of a real robbery taking place on the same day we’d planned a fake one were astronomical. Enigmatic. Unfathomable. Clearly fate was punking us.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely certain what to do about any of it. It wasn’t like I could stop a bullet. But maybe I didn’t have to. I looked beyond Lewis. No one would be hit if the bullet just kept going. It would shatter the window and end up in the alley somewhere, but better that than the alternative.
Okay. This could work. All I needed to do was move Lewis out of the way. I stepped to his side, placed my hands on his beefy arm, and pushed. He didn’t budge. Apparently things were stuck when I stopped time. When I bent it to my will.
I dug in my ankle-booted heels and tried again. He moved. Not far. Maybe an inch. But enough for me to know he could. I pushed again and again, shoving with all my might until I’d turned him and pushed him out of the way of the speeding bullet. He now stood at a forty-five-degree angle to the floor, which would be awkward when I restarted time. He would certainly fall. I could live with that.
Wait. I stilled as another conundrum hit me. How did I restart time? What if I couldn’t? What if I was stuck here? Forever? Lost in an inescapable time loop until I grew old and died? I needed to watch Back to the Future to get pointers, but I couldn’t even do that. Panic started to set in, and I had to take deep, calming breaths.
Surely, if I’d stopped it, I could restart it again. How hard could it be? But before I even attempted such a feat, I had to do something about the robber while I could. An idea hit me instantly. I took off my apron. The material became stiff. It was still malleable, but once off me, it became like a bendable piece of plastic. It defied the law of gravity and every other law I could think of.
I hurried over to the robber, molded it to his face, and tied it around his head. It would be enough to fluster him when time returned. To throw him off his game. I pried the gun out of his fingers and pushed it onto the floor beside Lewis.
Then I stood back to examine my handiwork. I brushed my hands together at a job well done before checking out the others in the immediate vicinity.
What few customers we had sat terrified. They’d been caught in mid-scream or mid-duck, trying to scramble to safety. Cookie looked more confused than afraid. She’d been entering an order when all hell broke loose.
Oddly enough, Erin stood like a warrior princess. Her jaw jutting out. Her legs slightly apart. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. It was as though she had every intention of kicking the guy’s ass. I felt an odd sense of admiration swell up in me. A camaraderie. And I suddenly wanted to be friends with her. Not like braid-each-other’s-hair friends, but definitely more than just mortal enemies. Anyone who could stand up to danger like that deserved a closer look.
Shayla, the tiny wood nymph, stood at the workstation, her face the definition of shock, a hand thrown over her mouth as she looked on in horror. She’d screamed. The love of her life was in danger. I would’ve screamed, too.
Speaking of whom…
I walked over to Reyes. He still sat at the booth, his darkly handsome features full of anger, his rich brown eyes glittering with it.
Now was my chance. I sat on the edge of the bench beside him. Tucked a wayward curl behind his ear. Ran the backs of my fingers over his shadowed cheek and jaw. Then I leaned in and placed the tiniest kiss on his full mouth.
“I’ve loved you for a thousand years,” I said, because it seemed true. To the core of my being. I was so drawn to him it hurt. I could only pray he’d get over his ex someday.
No. That was wrong. If I should pray for anything, it would be for his happiness, no matter who he ended up with. If he loved her, if he was devoted to his ex, then he deserved to have her. On the condition that she loved him back, of course.