Time's Enemy: A Romantic Time Travel Adventure (Saturn Society Book 1) Read Free Page A

gone.”
    “The paramedics are here. Check over there, I’ll look here... he might’ve fallen again.”
    She searched the platform, went through the transverse passage of the temple, then walked around to the first side, where Tony had fallen. Seconds later Mr. Lynch emerged from the opposite side. “He’s not—”
    “Sir?” The paramedics drew up beside Mr. Lynch. “Where is the injured person?”
    “He went in there for a minute, and then...” He lifted his hands, palms up.
    “It’s almost like he... disappeared,” Violet said. “Vanished.”

    Another dizzy spell. Tony pressed his hands against the side of the temple. Thank God he was inside and couldn’t fall again. For a second he thought he was going to puke, then the vertigo passed.
    He slumped against the wall for a minute, the stone cool against his cheek and palms, then pushed himself off. The simple action took an incredible effort. Man, was he tired. Maybe he hadn’t died there on the slope, but something sure as hell was wrong. Good thing the medics were on their way.
    He took three steps to the temple’s doorway, holding himself up with a hand on the wall. With the uncertainty of a man twice his thirty-six years, he wobbled and moved, but this time it was because of weakness and the strange, intense fatigue. God, he felt like hell. “Violet?”
    No answer. “Keith?” Tony wrenched himself through the door. “Charlie?”
    The platform was empty. Where had everyone gone?
    He clutched the edge of the portal, panting. Man, did his head hurt. Like someone had swung a sledgehammer into his forehead. He slowly pulled himself around to the outside of the temple, more bumps and bruises announcing their presence with each move.
    He leaned against the doorway. Even that took an incredible amount of strength. What the hell had happened to him?
    His fall explained his pounding head and bruises. He’d thought he was dead for sure. But then someone had latched onto him and pulled him away from that light—
    Bethany . He’d seen her. Then something pulled him back, like it wasn’t his time to go after all.
    But the weird tingly feeling that had come from the person’s hands (Violet’s?) and the dizziness... He’d watched a TV show about near-death experiences one time, but no one had mentioned anything like that.
    Freaky things could happen with a brain injury. Like a guy on the news last summer who got hit in the head with a baseball, seemed fine other than a bad headache, then dropped dead six hours later. Maybe he was suffering hallucinations.
    “Violet!” His voice was weak. He collapsed against the little building. The cry of a bird overhead made him look up.
    Black and red painted stripes circled the top edge of the temple. The air in his lungs froze.
    Those stripes hadn’t been there before.
    His gaze traveled down the unblemished staircase leading down the pyramid’s clean, limestone side, clear even without his glasses.
    No way. He was seeing things. That staircase had been ravaged beyond use. Maybe he’d emerged on one of the two restored sides. Sweat rolled down his face, its moistness cool in the breeze.
    Someone shouted from below. He looked at the ground. Big mistake. He flattened himself against the wall and concentrated on its solid surface. Why had he let Charlie goad him into coming up here? Then a worse thought hit him. What if, for some reason, the medics couldn’t come after him? Maybe they were already out on another call. Somehow he’d have to climb down those ninety-one steps by himself.
    Steps that hadn’t been there before. He hadn’t gone more than a few strides into the temple, and he’d come out the same side. The sun was in the same position it had been before he went inside. But below, trees and vegetation blanketed what had been a meadow. A moss-darkened, stone roof topped the rows of columns he’d seen.
    Tiny, brown blurs moved toward the pyramid. More yelling.
    A hallucination. It had to be. Tony blinked