The Reigning and the Rule Read online

I feel his stare on me. “Says who?”

  “The world. But you know what I say to that?”

  “What?”

  Twisting toward him, I look at him. His dark brown eyes are kind, yet they miss nothing. “That it may be a man’s world. But women?” I lean forward as though I’m letting him in on a secret. “We rule it.”

  The American tips his head back and laughs. The sound is rich and strong and makes my stomach flip in ways it hasn’t in a long time. When he looks at me, he wags a finger. “You are progressive. I like that. Tell me your name.”

  In mere days, the ship will reach dockside. I’ll have to decide if I’m going to stay in New York, and I’m sure this American will go about his business. What is the harm in telling him my name? Or my intentions, for that matter?

  Nothing.

  “I am Emmeline Hambleton, and I have a son. I’m not married and I plan on making something of myself. Who are you?”

  The man leans forward and flicks his cigarette off the ship. A gleam lingers in his eyes. “Suddenly intrigued, that’s who I am.”

  I once heard the first time you fall in love, it’s for love. The second time, it’s for money. The third is for convenience. And as I size this American up, I realize my second shot at love may be within reach. I just have to take it.

  Trying to keep up with my brothers when I was ten, I jumped out of a tree in hot pursuit of them and landed on my left foot and arm wrong. I remember staring up at the sky, feeling a burning pain in my foot. Gradually, it moved to my ankle. The pain was so powerful it took my breath away. My stomach automatically churned when I looked at the odd angle of my left arm. I didn’t scream or cry. I didn’t call out for help.

  All of those options would’ve been valid and expected.

  Instead, I remember my dad’s words about how if I’m ever scared or suffering to simply close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. He told me it won’t solve everything, but it will settle the riot of emotions inside me and help me think clearly.

  Almost twenty years later, I’m still using that technique. Resting my forehead on my knees, I close my eyes and take deep breaths. I need to figure this out because all I know for sure is I shouldn’t be alive. I pulled the trigger. I killed my great-great-grandfather, Edward Hill, or as he was better known in my life, Teddy Parow. I watched him die before my very eyes.

  His lineage should have disappeared from history.

  So how do I exist?

  Exhaling loudly, I lift my head and see where my store, Past Repeat, once was. There’s a children’s consignment shop there now called Kid’s Closet. Just looking at it hurts; all my hard work down the drain. Slowly standing, I step away from my old apartment building and glance up at the second floor where I once shared an apartment with my ex-fiancé. Minutes ago, I tried to speak to him, but he didn’t know who I was. To make the situation more fucked up, he was dating my best friend, Liz, the person who co-founded Past Repeat. She too had no idea who I was.

  I don’t have my purse on me. I have no idea where it could be. Perhaps in Charleston, South Carolina, right before I time traveled back to 1912? I don’t know. I just need to get in contact with my family. If I have one.

  The thought makes my hands shake. I’m still wearing the dress I had on when I left Étienne’s time. Flecks of his blood are splattered across the front, and my hem is in tatters. I look like one of those people from a historical reenactment. Crossing my arms over my chest, I hurry across the street and make the long trek across town toward the library. The few people who pass me give me a wide berth. They look at me as if I just escaped Fairfax Mental Health Facility, the local psych ward. When I reach the small brick building, my feet are numb, and my fingers are tingling. The warmth that greets me when I open the front door is such a relief, and I stand there for a few minutes just to get my bearings.

  Without my driver’s license—or any identification, for that matter—I technically shouldn’t be able to use the computers, but the clerk behind the counter is a seventeen-year-old girl who is so engrossed in some dystopian novel that I could probably pick up one of the computers and walk out of the building with it, and she wouldn’t notice.

  Very quietly, I creep past her and sit behind the computer the farthest from her. Immediately, the Google page appears, and I type in my dad’s name, Daniel Parow.

  Please be the same. Please be the same.

  In my lap, I cross my fingers.

  The seconds that tick by as I wait for the page to load are agonizing. When it finally appears, I’m devastated. My elbows drop onto the desk because there is no Daniel Parow. None who are my father anyway.

  I look up my brothers, Ian and Bradley.

  Nothing.

  And then I switch it up and search for my mother using her maiden name, Katherine de Valc.

  At last, I finally receive a hit from a site called My Family Tree Now. It has my mom’s maiden name, her children, which thankfully are still my brothers and me, and my dad, Daniel Langley.

  Katherine Langley.

  Better yet, Serene Langley. It doesn’t sound right.

  You’re a Lacroix, my heart whispers.

  I’ve struck gold when I see it has my family’s current address and phone number.

  23173 Buckskin Road Champaign, IL 61820

  “Champaign?” I whisper. “Where in the hell is that?”

  Furtively, I look around for a scrap of paper and pen to write down all the information. To be on the safe side, I write down any other phone numbers available and log off.

  Armed with this new information, I walk to the front desk and clear my throat. The girl, whose feet are propped up on the counter, practically falls out of her chair when she sees me. Considering I snuck past her, her reaction makes sense.

  “May I use your phone? My boyfriend dropped me off thirty minutes ago and told me to call him when I was ready, but silly me, I forgot my phone at home.” I make a cringe-worthy face over my fake forgetfulness and wait for her response.

  She looks at the phone and then me and then back at her book before she shrugs. “Sure. Just make it quick. Is it local?”

  “Oh, of course,” I lie.

  “Go ahead then.”

  My hands are shaking as I grab the receiver and call the number I’d written on the piece of paper. What is this clusterfuck that has become my life? How did I end up here?

  I’m in a library with no money, no idea how to get to my family or back to Étienne, and utterly terrified the number I’m calling will be a dead end.

  As the phone rings, my hand grips the receiver tightly, and my heart seizes when someone picks up.

  “Hello?”

  Immediately, I recognize my brother’s voice. My knees almost buckle. “Ian?” I say, my voice quivering.

  The girl lifts her gaze from her book and stares at me as if I’m nuts before she looks away.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Serene,” I say.

  Please remember me. Please remember me. Please remember me, my heart chants.

  I can’t bear another person from the present day not knowing who I am. It’s bad enough that Will, my former fiancé, and my best friend, Liz, have no recollection. But my own brother? That would be soul crushing.

  There’s a small pause, and I hold my breath. “God, Serene, where the hell have you been?”

  “I-I...I’m in Greensburg.”

  “Greensburg? Where the fuck is that?”

  You know where it is! You live near here! I want to shout.

  “Is that your sister? Give me the phone!” I hear Mom say in the background.

  “Wait. Let me talk to her,” Ian says irritably. Moments later, I hear a door shut and him sighing. “Where’s Greensburg?”

  “You know where it’s at.”

  “I really don’t.”

  “In Pennsylvania,” I rush out because my heart’s starting to hammer. His reaction is not good. I know the paper in my hand has an address located in some town in Illinois, but I keep
hoping for my brother to crack up and say he’s joking with me.

  Ian mutters curse words beneath his breath, and my heart drops to my stomach because I realize he’s not kidding. “What are you doing in Pennsylvania?”

  “I don’t know,” I finally say because it sounds like the right thing to say.

  There’s a long pause. “You’ve been gone for a month. Picked up everything and left for Charleston. Everyone’s been fucking worried.”

  A month?

  A whole month?

  That means it’s February of 2018. I missed ringing in the new year. There’s no possible way. When I time traveled back to Étienne’s era, I was there for nearly two months, but when I came back to the present day, almost no time had passed.

  This makes no sense.

  I look at the small calendar on the desk angled toward me and see the dates crossed off. Sure enough, I see the year is 2018. Today is Tuesday, and the date is February 6th.

  I want to pull at my hair in frustration.

  You killed your great-great-grandfather the second time you time traveled! my mind reminds me.

  The minute I did, I set off a chain of events that couldn’t be reversed. But did that also mean I sped up time in the present day?

  I don’t know. It’s my best guess.

  “Serene? Are you still there?”

  Dragging my free hand through my hair, I take a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m here.”

  “When can you get home?”

  “That’s the thing, I don’t know. I don’t have my purse. I seemed to have lost it.”

  “Shit.”

  “And Will won’t let me stay with him and—”

  “Who’s Will?”

  I close my eyes and suppress a groan. Why am I not surprised that Ian doesn’t know who Will is? “No one. Just a friend from college who lives here. Anyway, I need your help ASAP.”

  Right then, the girl glances at me. My conversation is starting to garner her attention more than her book. Discreetly, I shift my shoulders toward the front doors.

  “I can wire you money.”

  “How can you wire me money when I don’t have identification on me or any way to receive the money?” I say through gritted teeth.

  “Good point.”

  “I need you to pick me up.”

  “Hold on. Let me look up how long of a drive that is.” I hear him clicking away on a computer. “Where are you again?”

  “Greensburg, Pennsylvania.”

  He types the city in. A few seconds later, he groans. “That’s almost an eight-hour drive!”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah, it is,” he says dully.

  Nervously, I twirl the phone cord between my fingers because I’m running out of options on how to get back to my family. Staying with Will is out of the question. “Ian, I need you to come and get me. Please.”

  “You don’t need to beg. You know I’m going to do it, but you fucking owe me.”

  My shoulders sag so low, my forehead practically touches the counter. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “I’ll leave immediately. Where can I pick you up?”

  I ask the girl the address of the library and give it to Ian.

  “Do you have a place to stay tonight?” he asks.

  “Uhh...yeah. Of course. I have another friend I can stay with,” I lie as I stare out the front door. The sun is playing hide and seek behind the rooftops of houses. The sky is a soft shade of magenta, making the clouds turn a shade close to mauve. Soon, the sun will set, and the streetlights will turn on. The library will close, and I’ll be left to my own devices. Nine hours doesn’t seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things, but when you’re essentially homeless, it is.

  If Ian senses I’m lying, he doesn’t comment on it. “I’ll pick you up at the address you gave me as quick as I can get there,” he says.

  “Okay.”

  “Love you, Serene. You scared the fuck out of all of us.”

  “I know I have, and I love you too.”

  “See you soon.”

  We hang up, and I thank the girl. Through the reflection of the doors, I see her watching me leave. The second the door shuts behind me, she rushes forward and locks them. I can’t say I blame her.

  Hiding out in the library is no longer a choice.

  It’s getting colder by the second. I shiver and watch my breath come out in front of me like tufts of smoke before it disappears into the air. I have to find a warm place to stay tonight, and I think I know just the spot.

  Some might consider this breaking and entering.

  I call it desperation.

  The lock on the back door of Past Repeat is in bad shape. It’s rickety, and if you don’t press the door into the doorjamb with all your might, the lock won’t click into place. Liz and I ended up putting two deadbolts on the door. One above and below the doorknob, but if Past Repeat never existed, are those locks even there?

  My back is hunched over as I try to fight off the frigid air, and my feet go numb as I walk down the empty alley toward the back of the store. When I round the corner, I see dumpsters and streetlights but continue to keep a sharp eye for security systems that might be set up around this building or the ones around it. In the night, it’s hard to tell, but I’m confident hypothermia is minutes away from setting in, so I don’t give a tiny rat’s ass if I get caught. I merely want to be warm.

  I walk up the uneven, concrete steps toward my former business. My heart aches when I see the door hasn’t been changed. I twist the doorknob a few times and find it locked. No surprise there, but when I rotate the knob, I immediately notice how the upper and lower part of the door cracks open. The new owners of this building never fixed the lock or installed deadbolts.

  Twisting around, I hurry down the steps and look up and down the dirty alleyway, searching for anything that can be used to break into the building. On the side of the narrow road, I see a bobby pin and snatch it. Ignoring the freezing temps, I rush back to the door and fit the curved end of the bobby pin into the slit of the outside handle and slowly—but with enough pressure—turn it to the left. Once I’m done, I hesitantly wrap my hand around the knob and slowly turn.

  The new owners didn’t replace the back door, but there’s a significant possibility they have a good security system in the place. I brace myself for alarms to go off when the door opens, but I’m greeted with nothing but darkness and the rush of warmth.

  “Thank God,” I breathe as I shut the door behind me.

  I know this building like the back of my hand and could walk through it blindfolded. There are dim lights in the front of the store, pointing toward small headless mannequins modeling children’s outfits, which is a more than a little creepy at night.

  I peek my head into what was once my office. The people who now own this space must’ve never heard of a paper shredder or a trash bag because papers are piled everywhere, and trash is overflowing from the trash can. The desk is so cluttered it’d take an act of God for them to find anything of importance.

  Their organization skills don’t matter to me right now. I just want a place to lie down for a few hours. I back away from the office and head toward the storage room. My once business partner was a borderline hoarder. She would bring in every antique she could get her hands on. The storage room was always overflowing with her finds.

  When I open the door, I see rows of five-tiered wired shelves. In the dark, it’s hard to tell the contents, but it appears to be trash bags. I approach the shelves in the middle of the room and see toys. This room is probably filled with consignment clothes and toys that aren’t ready to be shelved.

  I walk toward the shelves on the left with trash bags lining the lower shelves. I move some sacks around before I lie down on the lowest level. As I lie on the bags, I try to imagine I’m lying in Étienne’s bed and not on garbage bags stuffed with used clothes.

  Sighing, I get comfortable and stare up at the shelf above me.

  I’ll stay here
for a few hours. Maybe I’ll get some rest, and hopefully, the hours will pass by, and before I know it, Ian will be here. Even in my uncomfortable position, my eyes begin to flutter shut.

  Just a few hours of sleep. That’s it.

  “Did you forget to lock the back door, Jeanie?”

  “Yes, Ralph. And I also left the cash drawer unlocked so the robbers could waltz on in and take everything. Of course, I locked it!”

  The voices and the back door slamming immediately wake me up. My body freezes, and my heart pounds. I had intended to get a few hours of rest and leave before anyone noticed I was here. What time is it? And who are these people? They have to be the owners. Straining my neck, I try to peer at the door. I want to move from my spot, but I know if I do, the bags will make a rustling sound that will alert them to my presence.

  “Well, then why did the building owner two doors down think he saw someone trying to break into the store last night?”

  “I’m telling you, you dumb son of a bitch, I locked the door. I’ve been telling you for months to replace that door. It won’t lock right. But do you listen to me? Of course not!”

  “Oh, can it. All you do is nag.”

  “You can look around the store all you want, but you’re not going to find a damn thing stolen because I locked that door!”

  They walk past the storage room, and I’m surprised to see they’re an older couple in their early sixties. They’re so engrossed in their bickering they don’t notice the storage door is cracked open. As their voices fade toward the front of the building, I use this as my golden opportunity to get up. My neck aches from sleeping at such an odd angle, and my back pops when I stand. I hurry toward the door and peek my head out. The hallway lights are on, making me squint.

  Ralph and Jeanie are still bitching at each other. This time, it’s about a lazy employee. Ralph wants to fire her, and Jeanie wants to give the employee a second chance.

  Trying to remain as discreet as possible, I slip out of the storage room and head toward the back door. My hands are shaking as I turn the doorknob. It makes a loud sound, but there’s no time to stop and see if Ralph and Jeanie notice. The second the door opens, I rush down the steps. It’s pitch black and freezing out. The cold air is a shock to my system and makes me gasp as I run as fast as I can, quickly turning the corner toward the main road. A cat on top of one of the dumpsters, sniffing the sides and inspecting the contents inside, meows at me before it bolts in the opposite direction.