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

but she supposed that didn’t mean much. Roman had always been secretive.

She pulled the dagger out and studied it in the dim glow of the boat’s headlight.

It looked expensive, she saw, but not old. It was heavy and plain, the blade nearly as thick around as her wrist. And, yes, it’s handle was indeed fashioned out of some sort of metal. In the dull light the metal looked brownish, like brass or—

Dorothy blinked. A passage from the Professor’s entries flashed through her head:

I would, essentially, need to use a piece of copper to connect the person with the electronic matter inside their body.

The motor shuddered beneath her, spitting up a stream of water that drew her attention back to the boat. She’d been studying the dagger instead of steering and now she shoved it back into her pocket. She needed to concentrate. This would all be over soon.

She saw Ash’s boat in the distance. And she saw Ash standing inside, his body silhouetted in the ever-changing light of the anil. She dropped her hand in her cloak and gripped the handle of her dagger tightly between trembling fingers.

Metal handle, she thought. Copper handle.

Her mind snagged on something she couldn’t quite catch.

It was strange, but she felt a sense of calm in knowing what was going to happen next. She’d tried to change things. Over and over again, she’d tried but, in the end, she’d been unsuccessful. Now there was only the thing that had to be done and an odd, shallow sort of comfort that came from realizing she’d never be able to alter it. Time was a circle. This had already happened. It had been foolish of her to think she had a choice one way or another.

Ash stood in the small boat, black water lapping at the sides. The trees seemed to glow in the darkness around him. Ghost trees. Dead trees. Water pressed against their hollow, white trunks, moving with the wind.

Dorothy pulled her hood up over her hair, breathing hard. The wind blew a few strands loose, sending them dancing in the darkness. She reached up, pushed those white strands of hair back under her hood with a flick of her hand, and then started the engine on her motor and sailed up next to the man she loved.

He looked like he had when they’d first met: that rugged sunburned skin and eyes that were such a light hazel they were practically gold.

Those lovely eyes fixed on Dorothy and, for a moment, she couldn’t speak.

“I . . . didn’t think you’d come,” she said. What she’d meant was I hoped you wouldn’t come. But she couldn’t say that. Her hopes didn’t matter anymore.

Ash looked at her, pleading. She saw in his face that he knew exactly what was going to happen, and, yet, he still didn’t believe it. It made her ache that he thought this could all be different.

“It doesn’t have to end like this,” he said.

Dorothy opened her mouth. How to explain? If she didn’t do this, Mac would find Ash again. He would dig the EM out of his body. He would use time travel over and over and over again, not caring that it would turn the rest of the world to dust. This was the only way. The outcome couldn’t be changed.

Dorothy curled her fingers around Roman’s dagger. “Of course it does,” she said.

Unless, she thought.

Unfortunately, I can’t think of a way to accomplish that that doesn’t, quite literally, involve knives and stabbing.

Dorothy hesitated, thinking. An idea was occurring to her. The outcome couldn’t be changed, but everything leading up to it could be.

Was it an idea? Yes, yes it was. Her actions could change. She could do this differently.

Headlights glimmered in the darkness. Every nerve in Dorothy’s body sparked. She heard distant voices, followed by a series of sharp cracks.

Gunshots.

She turned back to Ash. The Freaks were circling closer. Soon, they would be spotted. If she was going to attempt to do this crazy thing, she would need to do it now.

She pulled Roman’s dagger loose. Ash’s eyes followed the movement, something flashing through them. Not fear; disappointment.

“Dorothy—”

She leaned forward, gripping his shoulder. Ash brought his eyes up to hers, frowning.

“Do you trust me?” she asked urgently.

A look of confusion clouded Ash’s face. “What? I don’t—”

“Close enough.” She plunged the dagger into his abdomen, just below his ribs, where she knew the exotic matter was lodged. She didn’t stop until she felt the tip of the blade catch.

I would, essentially, need to use a piece of copper to connect the person with the electronic matter inside their body.

Something sparked—sending energy up her arm. Please work, she thought, and pulled Ash close, her blade still connected with that tiny piece of exotic matter. She dragged both of them over the side of the boat and into the black water below.

The anil swirled angrily, pulling them into its center.

Part Three

“Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?”

He stared at me, baffled. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

—Stephen King, 11/22/63

20Ash

Heat and pain.

The pain was worse than the heat; it reminded Ash of waves. It would crash into him, over him, and then he’d be sinking.

Down

and down

and down . . .

And, just when he thought he could take no more, the pain would ease, just a little, just enough for him to hear her voice.

“Ash? Ash, can you hear me? Open your eyes . . .”

Dorothy. He opened his mouth and tried to force words out through his lips, but then the pain hit, and it all started over again.

Was this what dying felt like?

He didn’t know.

He’d never died before.

21Dorothy

JUNE 7, 1913

Smoke and spinning. Flashing lights.

And then she was drifting, drifting . . .

The first thing Dorothy was certain of was the packed earth beneath her knees, the slight damp seeping through her cloak. She was kneeling . . . and then she was doubled over, one hand propped against the ground. She could feel the moist dirt beneath her palm, now. She curled