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

There—footsteps on the staircase, coming closer.

She ducked back behind the corner where she’d been hiding, frustrated.

What did that just prove? she wondered. If she had tried to break Ash out a minute earlier, would the footsteps have come a minute earlier, too? Were her own thoughts and actions catalysts that triggered other actions, and so on, forever?

She felt like she was on the verge of grasping some new idea, something that no one had thought of yet, but every time she came too close it burrowed itself deeper into her mind and was lost.

Mac appeared at the staircase before she could work this out one way or another, flanked by two Freaks whose faces Dorothy couldn’t see from her position around the corner. She held her breath, waiting for him to look her way, to hobble over to where she was hiding, but, of course, he did neither. He wouldn’t, she knew, because he hadn’t seen her the first time all this had happened. How far could she push this? she wondered. Would he still be unable to see her if she ran down the hallway screaming? Or would she be unable to do that because he hadn’t seen her?

It was enough to make her feel like her head might explode.

She watched silently as Mac dug a key out of his pocket and threw the door to Ash’s room open, and then she let her breath out in a rush. She leaned a little farther out into the hall, ears pricked.

Ash said something she couldn’t hear, and Mac responded with “I aim to please.”

A moment later, he and the Freaks stepped inside the room, pulling the door closed behind them.

Dorothy stayed crouched around the corner, alert, listening for any sounds or movement from the other side of the door. She heard muffled thumps, voices. And then—screaming. She closed her eyes the moment it began and forced herself to breathe through her nose.

Time was endless. It seemed that hours were passing, even though Dorothy knew it was only minutes. After a while, she sunk from her crouch to the floor, and leaned against the wall, legs stretched out before her. Waiting, waiting. With every minute that passed she thought that now, finally, Mac would grow bored, would leave. And yet he did not.

You save him, Dorothy reminded herself, when the sound of Ash’s screaming became too much to bear. You take him away from here.

Patience.

And then, finally—footsteps. Dorothy sat up straighter, pulling her legs to her chest so she wouldn’t be seen. She didn’t dare breathe, didn’t dare move.

There was a knock on the door. And then hinges creaking and the sound of Eliza’s voice. “Mac is busy right now. What do you need?”

Dorothy rose to her hands and knees and peered around the corner. She saw herself, as she’d been four days ago, standing in the hallway next to Roman.

Dorothy tilted her head, unable to look away. She was shorter than she realized. She barely came up to Roman’s shoulders. Her hair was tangled and limp, and her boots and cloak were splattered with mud. Dorothy knew this was because she and Roman had spent the day going back in time again and again, in the rain, trying to save his sister’s life. A lump formed in her throat at the memory. It had been a difficult day, and it was only going to get worse. In just a few hours, Roman would die. Mac would take her hostage. Her gang would turn on her, and she would learn that Ash had gone missing.

The outcome couldn’t be changed, but everything leading up to it could be, she thought.

Did that matter? She didn’t know.

Her own voice echoed down the hall, interrupting her thoughts.

“Those are new,” she said. Dorothy watched as her past self eyed Eliza’s boots suspiciously.

Eliza only grinned. “Mac asked me to do him a favor.”

“You’re working for Mac now?” Roman asked.

“Don’t look so surprised. You were the one who gave me the idea,” Eliza said. “Or don’t you remember our conversation back at the Dead Rabbit?”

A choked scream issued from inside the hotel room. Dorothy dug her fingers into the hotel carpet.

The outcome can’t be changed, she thought. There had to be some way to use that to her advantage.

Her past self was staring at the door, suspicious. “Who’s in there?”

“No one you need concern yourself with,” snapped Eliza.

The Dorothy of four days ago removed a long, thin dagger from her sleeve and held it up to the light.

“Do you know how much pressure it takes to rupture an eardrum?” she asked. “I don’t know, myself, but I hear people used to do it by accident, with hairpins and cotton swabs. Imagine the damage this could do.”

Eliza stared at the blade and licked her lips. Watching from around the corner, Dorothy smiled. That moment had been fun.

Her past self said, “Tell Mac I need to speak with him now.”

Dorothy rose to a crouch, replaying the rest of the scene in her mind as it unfolded in front of her.

Mac demanded to be taken to the future. She and Roman refused, and then he opened the door to the hotel room, showed them Ash, and she’d caved at once.

She felt heat rise in her cheeks as she watched herself, remembering how hard she’d worked to keep the emotion from her face, to appear as though Ash’s torture didn’t bother her.

I’d been a fool, she thought now, staring back at herself. She could see each emotion play out as clearly as if it’d been written in black marker on her forehead. The horror, the pain, the desperation. Anyone looking at her would’ve known what she’d felt. How embarrassing, that she thought she’d managed to keep it secret.

Roman said, “He should have a public death, don’t you think?”

Mac lowered his knife and said, “That’s not a bad idea.” Over his shoulder, he added, “Keep him alive until I get back.”

And he left with them. Dorothy released a low sigh of relief,