Timekeeper (Timekeeper #1)(48)
“Why don’t we switch assignments? Or I could pay you. Here, I’ll even buy your drink.” He tried not to cringe at the thought of more lost money.
“Are you cracked or something? I told you I’m not that desperate.”
“Keep your skirt down, I prefer blokes.”
With her bill settled, he walked her outside. She stopped at a chrome-plated motorbike, and Danny had to look twice. Even the sight of it made his stomach squirm. He preferred his father’s jalopy compared to this vehicle of certain death.
“I know more about you than you think,” she said suddenly. “And what people say about you. They feel sorry for you. Maybe I do, too, a bit.”
Danny didn’t say anything. Daphne unstrapped her helmet and sat astride the hulking machine.
“I understand, a little, what it’s like.” She paused, her breath hanging before her in the cold. “People knowing something about you that’s invisible. The way they look at you, as if they can see it if they stare hard enough.”
He felt his heartbeat in his stomach. He wanted to ask her if anyone ever did see it. If she wanted them to see it.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t agree to do this. It’s too risky, and I can’t afford to lose my job. It’s all I have.”
Danny fumbled to pull a fiver from his pocket he’d been saving for his next auto repair installment. “Look, I can pay—”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no.” Daphne hesitated, perhaps debating whether to say more, but she just sighed and strapped on her helmet. With a kick and a rev of the engine, she was speeding down the street, taking his last hope with him.
Well, not quite his last hope.
“Danny Hart, you are a fool,” he mumbled as he hid in a stairwell of the Mechanics Affairs building the next morning. Biting his lower lip, he peeked down the hallway. All along the back wall were folders, and in those folders mechanics received mail, quarterly reviews, turned in case reports …
… and received assignments.
A mechanic lingered in front of her folder, then walked away with her attention fixed on a sheaf of papers. Danny swallowed hard and snuck into the hall. His boots squeaked against the freshly polished floors.
A bead of sweat was already rolling down his temple when he reached his folder. There would be no assignment because of his suspension, though he checked anyway out of habit. But there, toward the end: Daphne’s.
And inside, an Enfield assignment waited.
He wavered, visions of consequences teasing his mind as his fingers brushed the edges of the paper.
The sound of footsteps decided things for him. Danny grabbed the assignment and hurried away, crushing the paper to his chest.
So Danny, not Daphne, set out for Enfield the following week. Any shame he felt for what he’d done was shoved to one side, overshadowed by excitement. He was returning to Enfield. To Colton.
Despite the rain, the drive was uneventful, except for a swerve to avoid the usual bump in the road. The sight of Colton’s tower melted away the dread that had settled on Danny like frost, a window bright with hearth fire, a welcome beacon urging him to hurry up—you’re almost home.
Stepping inside, he relaxed as time wrapped him in its comforting embrace. Want purled through him as the fibers wound around his body, hugging him, greeting him.
At last, he could draw a full breath.
Brandon looked unsurprised to see him. Danny smiled and turned to the clockwork, which was already quite clean thanks to his earlier efforts, but a thin film of dust had once again settled. They brought out ladders and wiped down the highest gears. At one point Danny looked down, unsettled by the height, and saw Colton jokingly hand him the micrometer. Danny laughed, startled out of his fear, and Brandon gave him an odd glance.
“Not as dirty as all that,” Brandon said when their task was complete, with a sense of pride that Danny thought highly undeserved. “Guess that leaves us a bit of time to relax.”
“You can if you want to,” Danny said. “I’ll go check on everything else.” Brandon shrugged and headed down the stairs.
There was a ripple through the time fibers. Danny felt the pull of him through the air, a gentle tug on his limbs like he was a moon being drawn into orbit.
He turned and saw Colton standing there. Golden and beautiful, ancient and new. The shining apex of the world. And when Colton smiled the light burst stronger, filling the cold cavities of Danny’s chest where no sunlight had touched for so long. It ached. And it was sweet. And it was ancient and new.
They stared at each other for minutes that were wordless, but not silent. Their eyes were having a discussion of their own, a simple hello, a tangible relief. But Colton couldn’t stay ignorant for long. As they walked through the tower, under the patter of the rain, Danny told him what had happened. Colton’s lips dropped from his usual smile into a grim line.
“Won’t you be in trouble?”
“Only if I’m caught. Besides, I doubt they’d want to get rid of me.”
“They can do that?” Colton took a worried step back. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here.”
“It’ll be fine.” Danny took Colton’s hand, and the space shifted around them. The air flowed over Danny’s skin and time fibers wrapped around his body like rope, as if to keep him there forever. “I want to be here.”