Whiplash (Through Time 2)

of Jazmine Decker’s mouth. She couldn’t seem to stop screaming as she dropped towards the pterodactyls open beaks.

She knew that she wasn’t quite human any longer, but her mind went human on her as she fell towards the large mouth of one of the babies.

Her new Fae blood kicked in and took over instinctively, however, and when she shifted this time it wasn’t a jump shift but an honest-to-goodness Fae shift.

This time, she had actually shifted quite a distance, and as she stepped out onto solid ground, Jazz knew her Fae blood had triggered a map in her mind and located a safe haven for her.

Jazz stood there, caught her breath, and looked around in awe. She was at the edge of a cliff on a very high mountain. A slab of flat rock about five feet wide protruded out about twenty feet, and she stared down into the ravine below and murmured, “Whoa.” Okay, she thought and stepped back, took a look around, and headed for the safety of the grassy slope of earth at the side of the mountain. Rock walls met her as they reached toward the sky—straight up to another peak.

Wild and tropical vegetation filled the gaps in the rock wall before her. Lush green bushes and palms were scattered along the earth where she stood. Steam and heat engulfed her surroundings, which were so completely at odds with the world she had just shifted away from.

Further down the ravine she could see molten lava pits spurting out their insides, and with a heavy sigh she plopped onto the grass and put her head into her hands.

“Trevor, find me, baby, find me,” she whispered to him as she surveyed her surroundings. She scrambled back to her feet when she realized what lay behind her. A cave!

“Huh?” she murmured, brushing herself off as she went forward to inspect this new find.

So it works, she thought, just like Trevor said. A Fae thought of where he needed to go … and, bam, he shifted there. Earlier, when she was plummeting from the flying dinosaur’s talons, she thought what she needed was a cave to hide out in, and wham, here was the cave.

How could she know there was a cave in this God-forsaken realm?

She didn’t know how it worked, but she was damn glad it had. What she needed was a few moments to get control of herself and figure out what she could do to get Trevor to hear her. He had to hear her and come for her.

An answer was there somewhere in her altered brain, a brain that was now as much Fae as it was human—in fact probably more Fae than human. She had to come to grips with what she was becoming and used the skills that were hers, newly hers but hers all the same. She had already learned one valuable lesson: if it looked too easy, it was. Pestale had been too unconcerned when they found him opening a portal. She should have known it was a ruse. He wouldn’t do that to her again.

“Okay,” she said out loud. “This is good.”

Trevor had taught her how she could use the elements. She had only been able to nearly master the simplest of tasks, but he said her skills would improve with time. The Fae blood now surging through her and making her strong in ways she never could have imagined would eventually replace all trace of human blood. He had said the most difficult thing to overcome would be her human attitudes and assumptions, as they were embedded in her psyche.

One of the things she had enjoyed was discovering she had the power of what as a human she’d have called telekinesis. This was in actuality, Trevor had said, a science of mind, body, and the use of the elements. He had begun her training in this science, though she thought of it as magic. She told him she would always think of it as magic.

For the moment, though, she didn’t need to transport anything with her mind. There were things she could use lying around the mountain ledge.

She picked up a long branch from a nearby tall tree, tore off a piece of her top, and laughed at herself. She probably looked like a castaway. Then she grimaced ruefully because, in essence, that was what she was.

She gathered some dried grass, wrapped the cloth around it, and then picked up some pine bark. The Fae in her kept telling her she didn’t need all this—she had a link to the elements and could create fire with a thought—but her human side needed something to keep her busy.

Once her torch was ready, she sighed and resigned herself to do what only the Fae in her could do. She concentrated on one vision: fire. Just like that, she had a working torch. She couldn’t help but grin, though that grin quickly faded when she turned to face the dark, though somehow very beckoning mouth of the cave.

The entrance to the cave was not a wide opening but narrow and partially hidden by a jutting rock. The cave narrowed even further as she went in deeper, and the light from the torch showed that it split into two passages.

Jazz worked the torch into the dirt to stand it up, used a bit of Fae magic to secure it, and looked around. She needed time to figure out what she was going to do to help herself get out of this situation, and she needed a safe place to do that. She was fairly certain the shape and size of the entrance wouldn’t allow larger predators to stick their grubby claws inside and get to her, but what about from the other direction?

Sighing with a certain amount of resignation, and extremely wary, she looked down at the forked trails. Suddenly, she realized she could see in the dark, not as well as during the day, but so much better than a human. She left the torch at her back and moved to where the two tunnels diverged.

Something could come at her from either of these passageways, something her size, for the corridors at least at this end wouldn’t allow for anything, or anyone, larger.

There would be no sleeping here, but did she need sleep?

And was she doing the right thing—hiding out like this?

Would Trev be able to find her if she stayed in this cave?

What if the cave was lined with iron? Was he like Superman? Was iron his Kryptonite? She had seen what happened to him when he handled iron. It had sapped him of his strength and even caused him severe pain. His senses would be affected, and he would not be able to find her.

Stop, just hold on, she admonished herself. She was imagining things—there was no reason to believe this cave was coated in iron.

She was going to have to get herself together, venture out into this realm, and use the Fae skills he had trained her to use if she was going to stay alive long enough for him to find her.