Chapter 4

Chapter

Four

PRUE

I t was official, I have lost it. I have done the one thing I swore I'd never do: be the idiotic person in a horror movie. The one who runs inside the house and upstairs when being chased? Instead of outside, into the woods, where they can hide and probably find help or into the car where they can drive over their pursuer. How have I become this girl?

"We need to go."

"All right," I snap as I grab another pair of underwear.

You can never have too many, right? I snatch jeans, another pair of shoes, my shower stuff, and throw it all into a backpack. Grayson's hovering has given my anxiety, anxiety. My stomach is aching, and there's a voice in my head that won't shut up. I'm second-guessing every choice I've made. I want to unpack my bag and double-check all the clothes I have chucked in there. Adrenaline courses through me, and my chest hurts. All of it, a direct result because this situation is out of my control, and I don't know what's going to happen. Every nerve in my body is on edge. I hate it, but I can't stop it.

I pick my phone up off the table.

"You won't be needing that." He eyes me as I tuck it into my jacket pocket.

"What am I doing?" I mutter to myself, ignoring said human, who told me I won't need the one thing that keeps me in contact with the rest of the world.

He's spent the last twenty minutes telling me two things on repeat.

One, we have to hurry because we're being hunted. When I asked by whom, he gaped at me like I sprouted a pink tail from my forehead.

And two, that he'd explain everything to me as soon as we were somewhere safe.

I spent the same amount of time trying to rationalize what I had done, but this time I couldn't write it off to my brain protecting me and blacking out. I saw a naked guy fall from the sky, and no one else had. I lost control and tapped into something. I'm in the middle of it all, and I have no idea why. Going with Grayson and finding out what's going on isn't a choice anymore, but I won't be telling him that.

"I'm ready." I stop in front of him. "I want to be clear though, I have only agreed to come with you tonight. One night only, Grayson."

He grinds his teeth, folds his arms, huffs, then reaches for me. I jump back.

"Relax." The word is curt. He takes my bag from me. "Let's go."

I nod and let him lead the way. I glance around my little house. My heart lurches because this is my safe zone. I set it up to be exactly how I wanted it, and it's the only place in the world I truly feel secure.

We head to the door, and as we do, I vow that I'll return, that I'll figure out what the hell's going on, and how to get rid of Grayson and the chaos he brings with him. And when I come back, I'll put up a don't-land-on-my-lawn-naked sign and live out the rest of my days learning new recipes from Andria. Hey, maybe I'll find a nice boy who wants a quiet peaceful existence like me. We could extend my little house and add a vegetable garden.

"Prudence."

The sound of my name cuts off my train of thought.

Grayson's holding the front door open for me. He's perfectly framed in the door and against the night sky. For a moment, he's setup in a movie scene; offset by the background, tall, and rugged, and with this air of indifference about him.

I step outside, not wanting to give any indication that I'm observing him. I lock my door. We stand in the garden for a minute, almost in the same spot he'd first…landed?

"Where to?" I finally ask.

"I take it you don't have a car."

I shake my head.

"Where is the nearest hiking trail? Somewhere that leads up a hill or such? We need a high point," he says.

The laugh that comes out of me is more like a shriek. He faces me and rubs his jaw.

"You have to be joking. I'm not going to any secluded area with you—"I say and even to my own ears my voice sounds shrill.

"Prudence." He once again steps toward me, catches my eye, and makes sure I focus on him.

"Prue," I correct before he can say anything.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He pauses, and his words almost sound sincere. "I need you. I cannot save myself or my world without you."

A car drives past, and the headlights catch him staring at me in earnest. He's begging me to believe that there isn't a trace of lie in his words. That I could do this, save this world and his.

When did I sign up for world saving? And what is he on about, because the world looks pretty intact to me.

I begin leading the way out of my garden and down the road. The location we needed wasn't far, and I couldn't help but think how convenient that was.

A couple of minutes later, I take a deep breath. My lungs are burning from the incline, but the top of the hill is in reach.

If I wasn't walking with a complete stranger in the dark, I would consider this one of the more romantic outings in my life. Warm air caresses my skin, the night's particularly quiet, and there's a soft glow from the moon over everything. The view of Haddlebrooke is captivating with all the twinkling lights in the distance. It strikes me that I never bothered to come out here at night. I hadn't even explored Haddlebrooke. A pang of regret hits me, and I wonder if I'll get a chance to explore it properly.

The top of the hill comes into sight with one bench situated in the middle of it. One, two, three…fifteen, I count the steps until I finally plonk down, grateful to have a breather.

"Here." I wave around us while I use the back of my sleeve to dab at my forehead. "This is the best you're going to get."

"It will do."

He takes in the surroundings then paces for what feels like an eternity before he ungracefully sits next to me. He seems to be carefully avoiding making any sudden movements and scaring me off, like I'm a frightened animal. Which I want to say is plain ridiculous, but it probably has some merit behind it.

"You have two options: I can rip the band-aid off and tell you everything in one go, or I can tackle things slowly and provide the info as you want it?" he says very matter-of-factly.

"Rip." I don't hesitate, the sooner I know what's going on, the quicker I can formulate a plan to get myself out of this.

"Don't interrupt me until I'm done then," he commands.

That makes me want to punch him, but I don't.

He's an ass, but right now, the only ass I should be worried about is mine. I incline my head slightly, and he continues.

"You're a Time Witch, Prue. You have the ability to manipulate time to your will across all three dimensions."

It's the first time he hasn't used my full name. It's a shame that it is coupled to a sentence where he tells me I'm a magical being.

"I'm a Time Master; we can only work with time across two of the dimensions. My world was destroyed by a rogue Time Faction and the only person who can fix it is you," he says with absolutely no trace of humor in his voice.

"Okay, I'm a Time Witch and you're a Time Master? You're saying we have some form of magic?" I pose it as a question; surely he hears how insane this all sounds.

"You're the Time Witch, Prue. Only one can ever exist, and there hasn't been one for over a century until you were born. You were sent to this time stream, and it took me a while to find you."

He pauses, and I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or run down the hill screaming.

"There's more—"

"That wasn't the kicker?" I cry out. "I'm a witch and need to fix your universe isn't all of it?"

He chuckles and carries on as if I made a joke and didn't ask a serious question. "A Time Witch," he corrects as if that's more important than the mini freak out I'm having. "And yes, when they destroyed my time stream, they damaged the link between the three dimensions, your earth, what I call Earth Two for now, and my earth. If you don't repair the link between all three, the universe, as we know it, will unravel and your home will disappear." He folds his arm across his chest, his gaze still on me.

I deflate, sinking as far back into the bench as possible.

"I want you to think about it, Prue. Have you ever been late for anything? Are you sometimes surprised by how things seem to work out around you? Like you pitch at the perfect time for a show, or your evening went quicker than expected?"

He eyes me, as if he knows I'm thinking about the dinner rush earlier and how the kitchen closed when I needed it too. Like time slipped by without me even realizing. I think about the bus always being right on time. I think about a couple of hours ago, when I wanted all of this to stop, and it felt like I could see…streams. That I could make all of this go away.

I'm silent for a while, my brain processing the information, and I realize my stomach isn't fluttering, my nerves aren't on edge, as if hearing this and acknowledging what I am settles my body. Or I'm in shock. Who knows at this stage?

"Show me," I finally say, wanting more proof. "If I and you, we," the words stumble out of me, "have the ability to manipulate time, then prove it."

"Was falling out of the sky not a good enough example for you?"

"It really wasn't."

"All right." He stands, smirks at me, and walks over to a bed of flowers. For a moment, he seems to consider what color he wants to pick, looking at me then selecting a purple one.

"This flower currently exists here and now." He pauses as if to ask if I understand. "I'm going to send it to you in a different form."

I'm not quite sure what he means, but the energy starts to ripple around us, I can see little light threads again all coated in and when I look up, petals are falling over me and the flowers' stem lands in my lap, brown now instead of the vibrant green it had been a second ago. He's still in the same spot.

"You aged the flower," I say, my throat dry.

"And I sent it to the time stream attached to you," he adds.

"De-age it," I demand, sad that it is wilted and no longer the vibrant purple it had been.

"I can't." His tone sounds bitter as he walks back to me. "Only you can. I showed you the two dimensions I can control. Time Masters can travel through time streams and manipulate the time energy around objects. That's it. We cannot undo and redo time. Some loopholes exist. We can apply enough energy to slightly heal something for example. But once we have fully manipulated something, it stays that way. But you, Prudence, you can undo and recreate the fabric of time."

" I can undo this?" I stare at the petals and the hard brown stem in my lap. I desperately want to fix this, but I'm me ?

"Yes, you'll have to learn how," he says, and for the first time, it is like he's seeing me—the shell of the girl who enjoys a simple existence, not Prue the Time Witch.

"How do I fix the time streams? Do we go to your world, I do some crazy magic, then we're done?" Please let it be that easy.

"No."

The word strikes me, and my body reacts, a sickness rocks my stomach, and I hum quietly trying to stop the nausea that's working its way through me.

"We have to repair the connection between all three earth's and to do that we have to go find the middle point of all of this first at Earth Two. Then we go to my earth and you reconstruct it."

So easy then.

"How are there different Earths?" I start but change my mind. "Wait." I hold my hand to stop him from talking. It's too much information to process in one go, and right now, all I have capacity for is that I am a Time Witch. What the hell? And, that if I don't help Grayson, he won't go away but my world will.

I meet his gaze. "Tell me the plan."