Dark Stars by Danielle Rollins (best affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

just a few weeks ago to Chandra and Zora, Dorothy had found the Professor’s journal among Roman’s things. She’d handed it over to Ash, but only after making a bargain. She wasn’t particularly proud of that moment, now.

Clearing her throat, she continued. “Roman must’ve torn the pages out before he left the journal for me to find. He didn’t want us knowing about them, for some reason.”

“You read them, though,” Chandra said, frowning. “What did they say?”

“Well . . . among other things, they seemed to indicate that it was possible to travel through time without a time machine.”

“No.” Zora’s brow furrowed. “My father would have told me if he were working on something like that.”

But Dorothy thought she detected some hesitation in her words. Did Zora know Ash had already done it? He must’ve told her.

“I . . . wouldn’t know,” Dorothy admitted, lowering her eyes. “I broke into the Fairmont so I could steal the exotic matter from the Black Crow and attempt it myself, but I . . . well, I chickened out. And then Mac found me and, as I had the journal entries on me . . .” Dorothy let her sentence trail off, hoping Zora and Chandra would fill in the rest.

“Mac has the journal pages?” Chandra said, frowning. “That’s . . . that can’t be good.”

Zora added, gently, “There’s not much he can do without any EM.”

“It was stupid of me not to hide them when I had the chance,” Dorothy said. “It’s enough that he even knows it’s possible to travel through time without a vessel. You and I both know that he won’t rest until we’ve shown him how to do it. Even if it means—”

A light appeared in the darkness, and Dorothy closed her mouth, biting back the last of her words. Chandra had gone silent, too, and Zora crouched at the back of the boat, one hand resting on the gun in her waistband.

The light glimmered in and out of focus, passing behind distant trees. Dorothy heard voices, shouting and talking, and then a series of sharp cracks broke through the night. As the boat drew nearer, she could make out black-clad figures inside. A boy holding a lantern, another holding a short, shiny pistol.

The boat zoomed past them and then vanished into the white trees just as quickly as it had appeared. Dorothy watched the light grow smaller and smaller, hardly daring to believe that it was gone.

Zora and Chandra relaxed, but Dorothy still didn’t move. Cold fear gripped her chest, and her knees had gone watery.

They wouldn’t stop looking for them, she knew. There was nowhere in New Seattle where they would be safe.

“I need to leave,” she said, turning back to Zora. “Tonight. Right now, actually.” She thought of Regan’s terrible threat. I’m told you have friends. People you care about. A lump formed in her throat and she added, in a low voice, “None of you are safe while I’m here.”

Chandra snorted a laugh, possibly amused by the idea that they had ever been safe.

“He cares about Ash, not the rest of you,” Dorothy pointed out.

“Flattering,” Chandra sniffed.

Zora shook her head and said, to Dorothy, “Where are you planning on going? You just said that the city isn’t safe. And the borders—”

“I don’t want to cross the borders. I want to go back in time.”

Zora stared at her for a beat and then said, her voice low, “That’s not possible.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it’s possible. Mac told me that you stole the Black Crow, and I have the exotic matter, and I know how to fly a time machine—”

“I didn’t say it’s not physically possible,” Zora said, cutting her off. “I said it’s not possible. As in I won’t let it happen.”

Zora crossed her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing to slits. Dorothy felt the backs of her teeth grit together, a muscle in her jaw tightening. Of all the foolish things to be stubborn about.

“Can I ask why not?” she asked, as calmly as she could manage.

“If I let you go back in time, you’ll kill Ash,” Zora said. “Neither of us may know why, but we know that it happens.”

“It’s already happened,” Dorothy snapped. “Zora . . . Ash is gone. If we do nothing, he’s going to stay gone. Can’t you see that?”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“I can,” Dorothy insisted. “Time is a circle. Meaning that whatever we do has already affected the world as it is now. I have to go back in time because I’ve already gone back in time. Chandra told me that Ash and I met in secret over the past week. Three times.”

Zora shot Chandra a furious look.

“And Willis backed her up,” Dorothy added, lest Chandra get into too much trouble. “I already went back, Zora. Ash and I spoke, and somehow, somewhere in the midst of all that something happened, those meetings resulted in him being gone. I’m not going to be able to rest until I find out why. Will you?”

Zora was staring at her very intently now, chewing on the inside of her cheek. After a while, she swore and looked away.

“Fine,” she said. “Come on.”

After what felt like an eternity, they drew up alongside a dock and pulled to a stop. Zora cut the engine, but the sound of a rumbling motor ghosted around them, not quite willing to die.

“Where are we?” Dorothy asked. As far as she could tell they were still entirely surrounded by black water and white trees.

“Hiding place,” Zora said. “Or, the best I could come up with on short notice. This area used to be Volunteer Park, but now it’s nothing, just water. I figured, what better hiding place than in the middle of a bunch of nothing?”

Dorothy still couldn’t see a thing beyond the pulsing darkness, but she felt the boat tip below her and then rock as Zora climbed out. There was a sound like a key being fit into a lock, and then a light flicked on, illuminating gleaming aluminum siding, a finned tail, the dark glass of the