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  It looked nothing like Vancouver, BC, where she lived. In fact, as she shuddered and leaned against the closed door behind her, this didn’t even look like her planet.

  “Where did she go?” Milo cried out. He spun around and said, “She’s gone.”

  And damned if he didn’t look like he would cry. Liev dropped his hand from his cheek only to raise his hands in irritation and snapped, “What did you expect? You snatched her from her world and dumped her here. She panicked and ran. Of course, she did. We have to find her.”

  “Find her? Where else can she go?” Milo dashed up beside Liev. “She can’t go anywhere. That’s the beauty of this.”

  Liev spun on his heels to stare at him in shock. “Really? I think you forgot to tell her that.” Exasperated, Liev raced out of his brother’s design room and into the short hallway. There weren’t many places for the woman—and whatever she clutched in her arm—to go. This was an office building, thankfully at nighttime. The security system was on and most of the offices would be locked up tight. Several more doors were ahead, and he could only hope she’d gone in a straight line. Actually, he could hope that this disaster was just a bad dream, but knowing his brother …

  “We have to stop her before she finds a way outside.” To lose her in that jungle would be a tragedy. And he had had enough of those on his hands with this damn technology as it was. If the government got wind of Milo’s latest experiment, Milo and Liev could both be thrown in jail and their technology confiscated, never to see the light of day—unless those in power wanted to use it for themselves.

  And that would be disastrous.

  The ruling governmental Council had too much power now. Dealing with them was worse than dealing with the CCPA. Much worse. Who knew what the Council would do with something like this technology? Knowing how corrupt the Council was—it would be nothing good.

  Liev couldn’t believe Milo had finally succeeded with his time-travel project. His kid brother was a genius like none other, sure, … but to do something like this? … Liev kept moving forward and opened every door he came to and still found nothing. He raced for the front door, his heart sinking. Please don’t be outside. Please …

  “Wait—”

  Too late. Liev had already barreled ahead and made it outside before his brother’s words infiltrated his frustration. “Okay, this is bad,” Liev said. As he watched, the line of buildings in front of him slowly went dark, one after the other. Just like last time. “So very bad.”

  “I didn’t do that,” Milo said when he caught up to his brother. He held up his new SXC4500 fingerboard computer and shouted. “I have her on the camera.”

  Liev spun around. “Where is she?”

  “She came back inside.” Milo flipped the comp around so Liev could see.

  “Really?” That stopped Liev in his tracks. He peered at the screen. “That was actually a really smart move.”

  Milo grinned. “Yeah. See? I didn’t choose a bimbo. We need someone with enough brains to handle this type of switch in her life.”

  “That’s not measured by brains. So much more is involved here.”

  “Oops,” Milo said, looking back at the screen. “She’s on the move.”

  Milo’s new rocker boots clicked as he raced behind Liev back into the facility. Liev shook his head. Milo needed a keeper himself. How could he possibly determine the type of woman who would not go crazy from his damn experiment? Anyone would be completely freaked out by such a trip. And what about her physical state? That she was on her feet and moving was incredible. That she appeared to be cognizant enough to be searching for a way out was … well, that was beyond belief. And fit right into the scope of Milo’s unbelievable success. Regardless of the poor woman’s health and emotional or cognitive state, Milo had pulled this female from wherever she’d been living happily, and he’d somehow dumped her in his office.

  Still blown away, the two brothers retraced their steps as they tracked her through the building. Minutes later they ended up back in Milo’s office with still no sign of her.

  “She’s in here somewhere,” Milo muttered while clicking away on the tracker. “The tracker is operating erratically. I’m struggling to lock onto her position.”

  Liev searched behind the chairs and under the desks. “Please tell me that you can send her back.” Liev turned to his brother. “That you can reverse this process.”

  “I don’t think so.” Milo threw him a sideways grin. “Besides, we don’t want to send her back.”

  “I do,” Liev snapped. “And I’m sure she wants to go back too. She has a life. Remember?”

  “Hmmm. According to my research, Lani Summerland doesn’t have much of one.” He clicked through his fingerboard computer and read off the list. “No partner. No career to speak of. Failed business after one year. Managed to stay gainfully employed. No marriage. No children. No long-term friends on record.”

  Chapter 3

  They knew her name. Lani sank lower in the empty closet she’d hidden in as the painful litany of her failed life washed over her. She buried her face against Charming’s fur, her arms tightening until he protested. Only his voice was hoarse and weak. Then she wasn’t feeling all that great either. That kid’s words weren’t helping. What a horrible dissection of her years to date. Surely it hadn’t been that bad? Besides, it’s not as if her life was over. She could achieve greatness yet. Couldn’t she?

  “It’s not that simple, Milo.”

  Lani heard the discussion despite the noise of doors being opened and closed. The kid’s name was Milo? And what was his relationship to Lawrence? Her mind spun on endless questions as she struggled to sort out where she was and how she got here.

  The deeper of the two voices spoke again. “She has reasons for what happened in her life. Sure, she might be up for a move a couple centuries into the future. She might consider it an adventure. She might consider it an improvement on her old world. But you didn’t ask her. You didn’t give her a choice, and that makes all the difference. You just yanked her out of her old life. For all you know, she might have a major plan about to come to fruition, and you stole that from her.”

  “I did not,” Milo protested. “I did my research, Liev. I’m not an idiot. She had nothing. She was nothing. She would have become nothing. Now she is something—special.”

  Her heart squeezing tight, Lani listened to Liev—not Lawrence—and Milo discuss her life. As if they knew her. As if they knew everything about her. And she meant everything. How was that possible? And then came the big question of why? Why her?

  “And where in her psych profile, Milo, did it say she’d be up for a complete shock like this?”

  “Ahh …” Milo stuttered.

  Liev’s voice dropped to an ominous level. “You didn’t get a psych profile, did you?”

  “Well, it’s not so easy. They didn’t do them regularly back then. They were quite primitive people. Remember? Those types of analysis only happened with people that were unstable.”

  Liev snorted.

  Lani’s chest locked tight. A couple centuries into the future? They were kidding—right? But, from what she’d seen outside, before instinct had her spinning around and returning to the one space she knew—this room—she was not in Vancouver, British Columbia. At least not Vancouver as she’d known it. And she’d lived there all her life. Her city was gone. Her apartment building was gone. Her living room was gone. She was alive but her life as she’d known it was … gone.

  She squeezed Charming tighter against her chest and buried her face against his thick orange fur. Thank heavens he was safe with her. The two of them could have gotten blown up in the blast. “You’re all I have left,” she whispered. And got the next biggest shock of her life.

  “Hey. What do you mean all?” Charming said, twisting in her arms, his paw reaching out to bat her chin. “You make it sound like I’m nothing. And I’m a whole lot more than nothing.”

  Lani reared back and stared into her beloved cat’
s glowering eyes. She shuddered and closed her eyes briefly. Maybe she had a head wound? A concussion, she thought hopefully. That would explain the crazy phenomena. Immediately, she felt better. Until her gaze landed on her cat.

  “Charming?” she asked cautiously. “Is that you talking?”

  No, it can’t be. How stupid. She shouldn’t even have asked that question. It had slipped out instinctively. No way her cat could talk. Then again, no way could she have been yanked two centuries into the future either. She dropped her head back. She was losing it. Tears gathered in her eyes. Why her? All she’d ever wanted was to be happy. Was that so much to ask for?

  Questions rippled through her mind. Terrifying her. Making her heart stall, then race like she was being chased. She squeezed her eyes shut again. One tear rolled down her cheek. She turned her head to wipe her face on her sleeve. She needed some normality here. Something real she could grab and hang on to. She took a deep breath and whispered, “Please, Charming, don’t tell me you can talk.”

  And, oh, God, … he actually answered her.

  In a deep voice, unlike anything she’d ever heard before, Charming said, “I could always talk. Since when did you learn?”

  She swallowed, opened her eyes, and stared at her best friend. And found him staring at her, his face only inches from hers, with a puzzled look in his eyes. Such a human look in that gaze. Such a human-sounding voice. And words … English words. Strung into normal sentences.

  Except the claws in her flesh were all feline.

  Her mouth dropped open, and she shook her head in denial. “Not possible. It’s not possible. It’s. Not. Possible.”

  “Well, it’s possible but it’s not probable. I figured you were too primitive, too underdeveloped to learn such a skill.” He brightened, that wide mouth twisting up into a grin. “But you surprised me. You actually learned to talk.”

  At last she understood.

  She was crazy.

  She’d finally turned some invisible corner into a complete fantasy world in her mind. She’d always wanted to talk to animals. It had been a secret dream ever since she had been a little girl. Obviously reality had become too much, and she’d retreated to her childhood state. It was almost a relief in a way. To have an explanation for this insanity.

  It was either that or she was having a crazy dream. And that was all too possible. Not to mention being a better option.

  She beamed at her cat. “I’ll wake up soon, and this will be just a happy memory.”

  “I wish I was dreaming.” Charming snorted. “This little room is nice and cozy and all, but where is the couch? Or your bed? A big fluffy pillow? I need my nap.”

  “Sleep? You need to sleep?” She shook her head, staring around the tiny closet. “I was getting ready for a date.”

  “Yeah, great.” Charming gave a jaw-splitting yawn before tucking into her shoulder. “Who needs a date? Well, okay, you do, but really I need my beauty sleep.” And he closed his eyes.

  She stared at her cat and whispered, “Please let this be a bad dream. And please let me wake up soon and find everything back to normal.”

  “I hope so,” Charming muttered, “because you forgot to feed me dinner before we time-traveled.”

  At the words time-traveled, she forgot to breathe again. When she finally got oxygen back into her lungs, she cried out, “Don’t say that.”

  Suddenly the closet door opened. The same two men peered in, but the green mohawk, so large and long, was all she could focus on.

  A scream caught in the back of her throat. But no sound came out.

  “Aha. There you are,” said the owner of the mohawk, Milo, if she’d gotten the names right. “And who were you talking to?”

  She wanted to fight. Wanted to kick them both in the teeth so hard they’d never eat again. The older one, Liev—or at least more staid and adult looking male of the two according to what she’d seen and heard, even though he was the spitting image of her nemesis—peered around the green hair. This close, she could see he looked very similar to Lawrence, but something was younger, cleaner about his features. And maybe nicer. Lawrence had gained a seedy look to his cheeks and a perpetual smirk to his eyes.

  As if he was always one up on you.

  Which, in her case, he had been. And, if Liev wasn’t Lawrence, she had just smacked a complete stranger for no good reason.

  Damn.

  She risked a look at Charming, saw the feline smirk as if to say, Uh-oh, now you’re in trouble, and she shuddered. In a low voice, she said to Charming, “You can bite them in the balls while I run.”

  “Not happening.” And damn if her cat’s voice didn’t drop low to match hers.

  Liev reached down, grabbed her elbow, and yanked her to her feet. She tugged her arm back, climbing out of her hiding spot on her own, holding Charming protectively away from him. She shot him a dark look. “You don’t have to hurt me.”

  He retreated instantly, his hands out in front of him apologetically. “Look. I’m sorry. We won’t hurt you. Please. Let’s sit down, and we’ll explain everything.”

  She raised one eyebrow and proceeded to repeat everything she’d heard them say. Their eyebrows shot up. She added, “As you can tell, I can hear just fine. Now I want you to tell me how the hell you’ll fix this.” She glared at Milo. “I want to go home.”

  Milo jumped forward, his face earnest and proud at the same time. His eyes glowed with excitement. “See? That’s the thing. We can’t. That’s the beauty of this technology. It can’t be reversed.”

  “And that’s beautiful?” she asked ominously, her heart and mind screaming their protests in sync. “How do you figure?”

  While she waited for that explanation, she realized the men were guiding her into a glass cube she hadn’t noticed in the dark room. She could barely see her surroundings, but the room looked like a futuristic office with huge wall screens she’d never seen before. And some kind of center console. The wall screens looked see-through and had all those weird colors. She couldn’t tell what was outside that wall from her current position inside the cube. With them joining her.

  Once inside, she sank into the deepest corner to avoid their touch, holding Charming tight. He was her one link to normalcy. He stared up at her and opened his mouth.

  She slapped a hand over it and glared at him. And realized that, if Charming could talk—there was nothing normal left.

  Trying to process the situation faster, she studied the men with her and Charming, waiting for something to happen. Liev pushed something on his wrist, and the cube took off. She shrieked, reaching out a hand instinctively to steady herself, only to find the ride smooth and quiet.

  She couldn’t help but be reminded of the old Charlie and the Chocolate Factory story with the glass elevator that seemed to travel outside of buildings. Except this wasn’t likely to have as happy an ending as that story did. As the glass cube swept around corners, she noted it wasn’t on rails. In fact, it didn’t appear to be attached to anything. She gasped and squeezed her eyes closed. “Where did the ground go?” she whispered.

  “It’s there. Below us.”

  She peeked through her eyelashes to see the bottom of the glass cube and nothing else. Just a swirling whiteness—as if they were in the middle of a cloud. Her arms clutched Charming reflexively. Her mind spun, grasping for any reasonable explanation—and came up empty. She fell against the glass cube, hyperventilating. “Oh, this is not good. This is so not good.”

  Milo explained, “It’s just a modern elevator.”

  That didn’t deserve a response. There was no just about it. His idea of a modern elevator and hers were miles apart. She shifted Charming in her grasp but dared not loosen her hold. Not that she had any chance of dropping him with his claws dug into her arms. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d drawn blood. If so, she’d be dripping blood onto their glass floor.

  The elevator changed directions again, sending her lurching sideways. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. She felt the bead
s of sweat rise on her forehead.

  “It’ll be fine,” Milo said with a wide grin. “We’re perfectly safe.”

  At the end of his words, the glass box came to a complete stop. And it dissolved around them. As in, here one minute and gone the next. She slowly straightened wondering how it was she hadn’t fallen backwards. But there’d been support right up to the end.

  The men exited—if there was a cube to exit. They’d barely traveled. It almost looked like the same building—or maybe the same set of buildings? There’d been no sign of the outside world at all.

  She straightened, took one step in their direction, and, without warning, her stomach heaved and the effort landed her on her butt.

  “Oh, yucky. That’s so … yucky.” Milo danced away from her, his face a picture of morbid fascination. “I’m calling someone to clean that up.”

  “Fine, but let’s not be here when they arrive.” Liev knelt by the woman’s side, trying to ignore the reek from the mess at his feet. Sweat had beaded on Lani’s forehead—at least that’s the name he thought Milo had called her—and her color had gone a pasty gray. Her breathing had turned shallow and irregular. Probably a delayed reaction. Rushing forward a couple hundred years had to be tough on the stomach, if not the rest of her. That she could even walk and talk and … look half as sexy as she did was amazing. And he shouldn’t be noticing. Now she’d curled into a small ball, her slim frame rocking back and forth. The massive furry critter in her arms made a horrific howling sound that set Liev’s nerves on edge. He might have sympathy for her, but that animal …

  Through the noise, he heard her whispering into the animal’s fur, “It’s okay, Charming. It’ll be okay, baby.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but you are right. It will be okay,” Liev said, hoping he wasn’t lying to the poor woman, “but there is no way I can agree with you calling that … that thing baby.”