Second Chances

Get him out of there! I want him up here NOW!!” Jennifer screamed at the man guarding her, punching him in the face. She’d never experienced such a surge of fear as when she’d watched Brian tossed so casually into the swimming pool, his hands and feet tied. She barely knew him, and most of what she knew about him was based on sheer attraction. Yet the thought of his death made her crazy. She’d never felt this kind of anger before. Or this kind of helplessness.

The agent clutched his face, blood streaming from his nose. He turned toward the door, and Jennifer turned to look, too, brandishing a floor lamp, ready to use it as a weapon against whomever might be trying to come in.

But it was Brian. Soaking wet and coughing up water, he was pushed into the room. His hands and feet were still tied, and he fell heavily onto the floor.

Jennifer’s relief was dizzying. Brian was alive. She dropped the lamp with a clatter and went to him, pulling him up into her arms.

He was shaking and gasping and getting her nearly as wet as he was, but she didn’t give a damn. He was alive!

She looked up toward the still-open door and into the eyes of the man who had introduced himself as James Dixon---the head of Merlin.

“We weren’t really going to harm him,” Dixon said chidingly. “We were just trying to get a little message to your future counterpart.”

Dixon held up a thickly bound set of papers. It looked like the reports the R&D staff at NASA often put together. “I have all the answers to your questions about time travel right here, Dr. Townsend.”

Brian struggled to sit up. “No! Don’t look at it, Jennifer…”

Dixon stepped closer. “Why don’t we let Mr. Littrell get dried off while Dr. Townsend and I talk?”

“You can’t look at it,” Brian continued, his voice as urgent as his eyes. “Jennifer, it’s important that you don’t ever allow yourself to know how the Wells Project works.”

“But, Brian…”

“He is not a scientist, Doctor,” James Dixon interrupted. “He doesn’t understand your need to know. Let my men take care of him while you read this report.” He motioned two of the agents forward.

Jennifer would have sold her soul to see inside the covers of that report. But she wouldn’t sell Brian’s. “No. He stays here with me or we don’t talk at all.”

Dixon sighed. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Jennifer didn’t hesitate. “The hard way. He stays with me.”

Dixon motioned to the agents, and they backed off. “All right,” he said. “The hard way it is.”

***************

The door was shut, but only after James Dixon tossed the Wells Project report in after them.

They were locked in a walk-in closet filled with men’s clothing. A single bulb burned overhead as a full set of bolts were thrown on the outside of the door. This was James Dixon’s hard way. He was pitting Jennifer and Brian against each other by putting them here, in such close quarters, with nothing but a light and the report that Jennifer so desperately wanted to read.

The report that Brian so desperately didn’t want her to read.

In the meantime Dixon was sitting tight, waiting for Jenn to show up. Waiting to kill her.

“Are you all right?” Jennifer asked, her eyes dark with concern.

“Jennifer, you have to help me get a message to Jenn,” Brian said as she helped him down into a sitting position on the carpeted floor. He was still tied up. His clothes and hair were soaking wet, and he blinked water out of his eyes as he looked at her. “We have to warn her not to come here.”

She looked around the tiny closet. “We have to find a way out of here.”

“Take a good look, Jennifer. The only way out is through the door. No, we’re in here until they let us out---until you read that report, or until Jenn comes and they kill her. And that’s why we have to warn her to stay away!”

“Warn her through double memories.” Jennifer bent down and worked to untie him. “Can they really be that clear? Clear enough to remember a conversation-----a warning?”

“They can be pretty faint, kinda like a weird déjà vu. But Jenn said that once you get used to…” Brian broke off, remembering something else Jenn had said. Something about…? “Jennifer, kiss me.”

She glanced up at him in surprise.

“There was something Jenn told me about double memories and glandular activity. If you kiss me, she’ll remember.”

Jennifer hesitated. “Brian, I don’t…..”

He pulled his still-bound feet away from her and struggled to his knees. It wasn’t easy with his hands still tied behind his back. “This will work,” he insisted. “Kiss me.”

She leaned forward, obviously doing this only to humor him. Softly, gently, almost chastely, she brushed her lips against his.

“Oh, please,” Brian scoffed. “I’m not your grandfather. Kiss me, Jennifer. Come on! Make it memorable!!”

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