Read Timestorm for Free Online Page B

bottom of his sock, and stuffed his foot in there before putting the shoe back on. “Yeah…?”
    He flung the door open and Lonnie stood there, taking in both of us. “I thought you preferred female lovers, Blake.”
    He rolled his eyes and laughed at Lonnie, then turned to me. “We have a joke about this room. It’s the only truly private soundproof area on Misfit Island.”
    “We’ve affectionately named it the reproduction room,” Lonnie said. “Because it’s ironic, or at least it was before all of you got here. See, Grayson prefers men, or one man, at least, who unfortunately died before Grayson was trapped here. Sasha is a ladies’ lady, which leaves only me and Blake to make special time-travel babies, but how old did we decide I am?”
    “Fifty-one,” Blake said, giving her a very nonromantic smile.
    “Fifty-one,” Lonnie repeated with a sigh. “Way too old to conceive with little man Blake here. And pretty soon, way too old to conceive with anyone.”
    This conversation had gone in a wild direction but neither of them seemed at all uncomfortable with the subject matter.
    Blake leaned on one elbow and looked Lonnie over. “I think you look great for fifty-one. I would guess thirty-five if I didn’t know better.”
    She rubbed the top of Blake’s hair. “You are wonderful. Keep it up, kid. Also, Grayson needs your help skinning some fish.”
    Blake and I headed out of the room and back outside. The cool air bit us right away and I couldn’t believe the shift in temperature.
    “Sorry about that,” Blake said, as we walked toward the lake. “Grayson and Lonnie are so blunt and open about everything, I’ve become desensitized to all their jokes, though there is a root to them—the time-travel-baby concept. It’s not the first time Dr. Ludwig would instigate something like this, but if that was his original plan, he messed up big-time. He couldn’t have picked a worse combination of four people to achieve that goal. Other than the fact that Grayson can deliver a baby.”
    Blake glanced around again, looking for any listening ears. “We’ll finish this soon, okay? I didn’t mean to trick you and I do have a point to all this.”
    I decided that I wanted to wait around to find out what that purpose was. “Good.”
    “Nobody’s going to care that I’m telling you these things but Grayson might suspect that I’m not coping with the reality of being stuck here. It’s not that exactly.” He looked around, as if checking for any sign of the others. “If anyone asks, I was impressing you with technology from your future in the control room, okay?”
    “Got it,” I said with a nod.
    As I walked toward the building where I’d been sleeping for the past ten days, I noticed Courtney and Mason sitting close together on the porch of a nearby cabin. Their heads were ducked and they were engaged in some kind of whispered conversation.
    I eyed them suspiciously and then went inside to search the supply cabinets for tweezers since my hands were still covered in splinters from gripping the wood during the memory-gas episode. Exhaustion from my first day venturing out hit me hard and the second I found the supplies I needed, I collapsed onto my back on the bed, holding my hand in the air to pluck the bits of wood from it.
    “There you are,” Dad said.
    I looked up to see him standing in the doorway. He slid inside the room and shut the door. “Hey, Dad … I’m just removing the leftovers of the memory-gas drama.”
    He sat in the chair across from the bed. “Yeah, that was pretty rough. Only my third experience with that.”
    “And the first time you had to lie about what you saw?” I prompted.
    He sighed, sinking back into his chair. “Yes.”
    I set the tweezers down and sat up. “You saw Courtney, right?”
    His face paled. “Yes.”
    “I figured.” I let out a breath, knowing exactly why he had to lie. That wasn’t the moment to tell Courtney what had happened to her. What most