Read Tempest for Free Online Page B

but I left out some details. Like what happened to Holly and that part about Dad and the mysterious CIA agent. Courtney just stood there, wide-eyed and listening, until I finally stopped talking.
    “I fell asleep, didn’t I?” she asked.
    I smiled for the first time in what seemed like forever. “No, I promise this is real.”
    She took a step closer, her nose wrinkling as she scrutinized my face. “You … look like my brother. Just … older.”
    I laughed. “I thought you would have taken off running by now.”
    “I haven’t ruled it out,” Courtney muttered.
    She touched my cheek and patted it gently. “Damn, it is you. It has to be.”
    “When’s the last time you saw me? The younger one.”
    “Four days ago. You’re supposed to be at baseball camp in Colorado.” She reached up to touch the top of my hat and pulled off a tag.
    “Dad was at the newspaper stand right next to me. I had to hide my face a little.”
    “So you can really time-travel?”
    I nodded.
    We both stared at each other for a minute longer until she finally spoke again. “Aren’t you going to explain a little better, like the science part? This is really freaky, you know.”
    “Right, okay. I’ll try my best.” Both of us sat down by the tree across from each other. Courtney folded her legs underneath her, looking much calmer than I would have expected. “So, 2009 is my present year, okay?”
    “Yeah,” Courtney said.
    “For some reason, I can’t go back there. Like the universe shifted two years into the past. I’ve been bouncing back to 2007 for two days now.”
    Her eyes were huge. “Why? And how did it work before the universe moved or whatever?”
    I kept my eyes on the grass and plucked out little pieces. “I don’t know why. But before, I would only jump an hour or two, sometimes a couple days. Then I would just end up back in the same place, like I never left.”
    “How do you even know what time is yours?” she asked.
    “Basically, I have a home base. And the jumping part is like a boomerang. I’m thrown out somewhere and then I just circle back. When I’m in those other years, like this one, I feel like a shadow of myself. And nothing I do during a jump changes anything in my home base.”
    “Nothing?”
    I shook my head. “Not so far.”
    She glanced sideways at a man riding by on a bike. “So, if you had a gun and murdered that guy, he would still be alive three years in the future?”
    “I think so, but I’m not gonna try.”
    “Like Groundhog Day, ” Courtney said, staring over my shoulder.
    “Huh?”
    “You know, the movie where Bill Murray keeps repeating the same day over and over. He tries to kill himself by dropping a toaster in the bathtub, then wakes up on the same day again.”
    “I hadn’t thought about it like that, but yeah, that’s a good comparison.”
    “Can you go from here to another year, like 1991 or something?”
    “No, I have to tag up.”
    “Tag up?”
    “Like when the other team catches a fly ball and you have to tag up before running to the next base. If I tried to go back five years right now, I’d open my eyes and be right back in that diner bathroom in 2007.”
    She let out a breath and shook her head. “So weird.”
    “Definitely.” My mind sank deeper into analytical mode. Adam’s influence. “You know what’s really weird?”
    “What?” Courtney asked.
    “When I jumped out of 2009, it felt different. Like I was light as air. Normally it feels like I’m splitting in two. And every attempt to jump forward in time since I got stuck in 2007 has felt like I’m splitting apart.”
    “So it was just that one time that it felt different and now your universe shifted.” Her forehead wrinkled and I could guess she was playing with theories. Finally, she shook her head and smiled. “It’s just so crazy. Do you have some kind of evidence from the future?”
    I rolled my eyes. “What, like lottery numbers? Do we really need more money? Besides, you