Read Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2 for Free Online

couch. There were no buttons on the front, no numbers or any way to turn the thing on.
    “That’s the T.V.” Tim spoke from behind her and she jumped at the sound of his voice.
    “Where’s the cable box? And the control panel?” Sarah ran her hands along the front of the smooth black frame. “It’s so thin. How do you turn it on?”
    “Well, it’s hooked into the Internet through the gaming system right now.” He lifted a remote control that looked like it could operate a spaceship and began pushing buttons. He might as well have been speaking Greek to her.
    A large white screen appeared with a small rectangular box and colored letters. “Google?” Sarah turned to study the screen. “What is Google? Is that what T.V. is called now?”
    “No.” Tim grabbed a flat, black, shiny item and pushed another button. She moved closer. It looked like a tiny T.V. screen you could hold in your hands.
    “What is that?”
    “It’s a tablet. An iPad.”
    “What does it do?”
    “It’s like a computer, only a lot smaller than the ones you probably remember.”
    Sarah narrowed her eyes as his fingers flew over the tablet and her name appeared in the box on the television. Then the T.V. screen changed and there were lists of things about her. Even some photos, career statistics, and several headlines about her disappearance.
    “Newspapers are on television now?”
    “Sort of. The internet is hard to explain.”
    For the first time since she’d arrived her chest squeezed and the cold hand of doubt settled along her spine. Just a few years, but everything was different. Tim continued to flick fingers on the tablet and articles flashed on the screen, changing faster than she could read them. Photos of her, sun kissed and smiling with her fellow WPVA players and her old teammates from Pepperdine. Tim didn’t give her time to read much, or reminisce about her old friends. She read headlines, scanned a sentence or two as quickly as she could manage. Then a photo of her grandmother appeared on the screen.
    “Stop!”
    Tim froze and she closed the distance until she stood inches from the giant photo of her beloved Granny T. It was an obituary. The old woman had apparently caused quite a stir, refusing to believe her granddaughter was dead and leaving everything she had in trust to a girl who’d been missing for over fifteen years. “She’s gone.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Sarah shook her head and refused to succumb to the burning behind her eyelids. Fingers shaking, she reached out to touch the smooth surface displaying the photo. “She’s been gone for over ten years.”
    Energy crackled through her arm before a loud fizzing sound erupted from the black T.V. followed by a pop. The screen went black.
    “I’m sorry.” Tim pushed a few more buttons, then whispered under his breath. “And I think you just blew out my T.V., lightning girl.”
    “Twenty-seven years.” Gone. She leaned her forehead against the black screen in front of her, closing her eyes against the pain. If anyone had asked her a few minutes ago, she would have sworn she’d only spent a few hours in that odd laboratory with the Archiver Bran, Celestina, and the terrifying visions of Chicago vanishing that had nearly driven her mad. Her friends would be old women now, grandmothers. Grandma Tilly was long gone, too. And the one thing she’d been so proud of, so sure would succeed, the Women’s Professional Volleyball Association, had gone bankrupt after only a few years. “I don’t think I like your Google.”
    Tim approached from behind her. From the corner of her eye she could see a pair of black sweatpants, a green-and-white T-shirt with military insignia on it and a pair of rather large flip-flops in one of his hands. “Here. My mom was only five-two, so none of her stuff will fit you. I had to get out some of my old high school stuff. Get dressed and then we’ll figure it all out.”
    Sarah turned, but she didn’t reach for the clothes.