CHAPTER SEVEN
Jeanell’s eyes shot up, a gasp in her throat. She sprang to wakefulness and jutted up in the bed, sitting up in the rumpled sheets. She looked out the window to see daylight, realizing she must have slept through the entire night. Her heart pounded in her chest, cold sweat collecting along the crevice of her spine.
Well, she thought, I’m sure ready for that shower.
Jeanell was relieved to be in the shower, that hot water coursing over her naked body. She’d needed the rest and felt the better for it, but the shower was refreshing, rejuvenating, sustaining. As the hot water coursed over her naked skin, plastering her blond hair to her cheeks, it only reminded her how hungry she was, how her muscles still ached from her trek through the woods.
And while in that steamy chamber, Jeanell couldn’t help but think about her dream. It foretold a terrible attack from the chancellor’s forces. And it suggested more than that. Jeanell tried to take her mind off Ric, who was the center of that fantastical night’s journey into her own secret desires.
Don’t be foolish, she told herself, spreading the soap over her body, fingers trembling to imagine that they were his fingers, standing there with her in the heat and wetness. You can’t just fall in love with him, under these circumstances!
And Jeanell knew her better instincts were right. Here was a man who was ready to lord over her murder just a day before. Anything like trust or affection was misplaced at the very least.
But Jeanell couldn’t deny that she felt an undeniable attraction to him, like no man she’d ever met before. He was dangerous, he was courageous, and he was virtuous. Or he was a complete liar. But Jeanell’s time with him had included so much, actual life and death and the future of mankind passing between them, that single day felt more like six weeks.
And in those six weeks, Jeanell had seen in Ric things she’d never seen in any other man. He was a rebel, he was ready to risk his own life for a better world. Those were things Jeanell had aspired to, had hoped for, and had to some extent succeeded even if long after her short lifetime was over.
No, she had to remind herself. I’m not dead yet. I can still get back to my own time.
But even if not, Jeanell knew that she had a destiny in that time, in that place, things to do that could end her life before she ever had a chance to return to her own time. They would have to take the uppermost priority, even at the expense of her life.
Like Ric had said, she’d started a problem which she now had to solve, even if it meant using that same problem as its own solution, assassinating the most dangerous man in the world.
And she knew Ric would help her, stand by her side and guide her, perhaps even love her.
No, Jeanell told herself again, there’s no time for that!
But Jeanell knew that she’d lived her whole life with that mantra. There was never time for anything, not for dating, not for love, not for family, not for fun. Hers was a life in the library, the research lab, despite all the boys’ adoring looks and stammered invitations. But she knew then that it had only been an excuse, to protect herself from men she was afraid of, from feelings she couldn’t quite understand, and from the place society put pretty blond girls like Jeanell Glenn. She wanted to be more than just a pretty face, and she knew that she was; she turned out to be a genius.
And being alone seemed to be her life’s masterpiece.
It took being thrown sixty years into the future, to face her own death, to finally bring love into Jeanell’s life, and the more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t deny it; the more she wanted it.
Jeanell looked at herself in the mirror. She slipped her glasses on and wiped the mirror, taking in the full picture of herself. Mid-twenties, attractive, body in good shape, breasts still high and firm.
Does he want me?
She looked at her long, blond hair. She’d never understood how to use it, how men were attracted to it. But as she raised the scissors to the side of her head, she suddenly felt that she was parting with a certain symbol of her femininity. She’d never exploited it, she’d never truly understood it, but she felt that she was going to miss it.
Snip, snip, the strands collected in the sink, dark and wet. But it was necessary to hide herself, and what little good that blond hair ever did for her, it would only prove deadly in the days to come.
Black hair dye changed her whole look, including her eyebrows, and after an hour to let it set and then blow it dry, she barely recognized herself in the mirror. She had a more dramatic appearance, it seemed to her, more dangerous.
She liked it.
After her hair was dry and set, she put on the white outfit that everybody else seemed to wear. It was comfortable enough, flattering of her figure. Though she’d grown up a bookworm and a research scientist, her body was always firm, athletic. She’d been working out, always enjoyed her morning runs. Jeanell knew then that her lifestyle had helped her through the past few days, not to mention getting her past the next few.
With the clothes and the dye, Graham had left a pair of contact lenses, turning her blue eyes green and improving her vision tenfold. She wouldn’t need her glasses, further changing her appearance and improving her chances of survival. She also felt stronger somehow, like she was an entirely different person. Instead of the timid, mousy bookworm, she felt strong, exciting, a woman of adventure and danger.
Well, she had to ask herself, why not? How should I be the same? I’m in a different time, engaging in a suicide mission to save the human race. That’s not the life I knew, that’s not the person I was.
But it’s the person I am now, whether I like it or not.
And she did like it, just a little bit.
In the living room, Graham served tea, oaky and hot and spicy, delicious with a few chocolate-coated soda crackers. “Glad to see some things just don’t change,” she said to Graham’s amused smile.
Then she saw Ric step into the room.
Jeanell had changed her own look, and Ric had done likewise. The most significant thing besides the change of clothes was his hair. Those long, black locks had been shorn to a tight buzz cut. But it revealed all the more his striking handsomeness—sculpted cheekbones, strong chin, striking green eyes to match the artificial color of Jeanell’s new lenses. But Ric seemed even taller in his white suit, his lean and muscular physique pushing out from beneath the slightly stretchy material.
He walked in without a word, and that was about as much as Jeanell could manage to put together too.
Graham pulled out a smartphone, very much like the ones popular in Jeanell’s own time. Graham said, “You’ll use this to shoot around, get the lay of the land.”
Jeanell repeated, “Shoot around?”
Ric said, “We can go anywhere in the world.”
Jeanell’s mind reeled. “Anywhere at all?”
“If you want to see Paris, we just press a few buttons on the screen and boom, we’re there.”
Jeanell’s jaw literally dropped. “Paris. Can we?”
Ric smiled. “We can… and we will.”