“I don’t even know who you are! How can I trust you?” I stand up, barely feeling the pain in my foot. “I’m not going back in there.” I spit the words at him.
Wes goes still, his black eyes combing the trees again.
I open my mouth, but he puts his hand up before I can get a word out. “Someone’s coming. Get down.” His voice is so quiet I can hardly hear him.
I duck behind the large rock and sit in a tight ball. He stares in the direction of the bunker and then looks back at me. Our eyes lock. “Stay here. Stay down.”
He waits for me to nod before he disappears into the woods.
I listen for strange noises. All I hear are the ordinary sounds of the forest in the state park—birds calling to one another in the trees, a cricket chirping. Five minutes pass. Wes seems to have vanished into thin air.
I peer over the top of the rock. There’s nothing out there but trees. I clench my hands into fists, suddenly feeling like an idiot. Why am I waiting in the woods for someone who might be connected to a deadly government conspiracy and who definitely wants to lead me back into a death trap? My grandfather is probably waiting for me in the parking lot. As soon as I find him, this will all be over.
I stand up and stare at the point where Wes slipped into the trees. I hesitate for a second, then pivot and run in the opposite direction.
I run through the woods as quickly as I can without shoes. After a few minutes, I slow to a jog, searching for a way out of the woods. Everything seems strangely unfamiliar.
I listen for sounds of the ocean. If I can find the cliffs, then I can find the parking lot and my grandfather. But before I hear any waves, I come across a road. It’s little more than a wide dirt path, covered in tire marks. In the distance, dogs are barking, a man is shouting, and a car motor turns over.
I walk hesitantly toward the noise. I round a corner and the woods recede, the sky opening up over a large clearing. I recognize this place. I think …
In front of me are men standing in rows, holding huge guns. Another man is yelling at them. A bunch of old trucks are clustered nearby.
I can’t take my eyes off the buildings that circle the men. The buildings I’ve passed a thousand times with my grandfather. The buildings that were abandoned and covered in graffiti only hours before. They look brand-new, gleaming with fresh paint. The old gymnasium, a white clapboard building, has a tall steeple on the top. A steeple that was built in World War II to trick enemies into thinking the building was a harmless church. A steeple that fell down over two decades ago.
I whip my head around. And then I fall to my knees in the dirt, staring wide-eyed into the empty sky. There’s no radar tower. It’s approaching twilight, the light is starting to fade, but you can see the rusted, wire tower from anywhere in Camp Hero. It was built years and years and years before my birth. Now it’s gone. Like it was never there. Like it hasn’t been built yet.
I hear a distant shout, and one of the men breaks away and walks toward me. “Miss? Are you all right, miss?”
I shake my head from side to side, unable to answer. Fear rises in my throat, so fast that I’m afraid it will come pouring out of my mouth if I open it.
The man comes closer. He has blond hair cropped short. He’s wearing an olive-colored uniform: a khaki shirt with boxy shoulders tucked into high-waisted pants, three black stripes on his sleeves. I see the warm golden color of his skin before I close my eyes tight. “What is today?” I whisper to him.
“Sorry?” I hear leaves crunch as he comes closer. “What did you say, miss?” His voice drawls over the words like warm honey.
“The date.” My eyes are still closed, and I press my hands to them. “What is it?”
“It’s Tuesday. The thirtieth of May.”
“And … the year?”
“Nineteen forty-four.” He sounds concerned.
Nineteen forty-four. Fifty years before I’m born. I gasp. My lungs feel tight, aching, closing.
“Miss, are you all right?”
I grasp at my chest with both hands. “I—think—no—”
He squats down beside me. “Put your head between your knees.” He cups the back of my neck with his hand and pushes me forward gently until my forehead is almost touching the ground. “Try to breathe through your nose.”
I breathe in and out, trying to concentrate on getting air even as my thoughts come faster, faster. Everything they say is true. That vessel was a … time machine. I’m in the past. I’m in 1944. 1944. 1944.
I keep my head pressed into the dirt, hoping that if I squeeze my eyes hard enough that maybe this will all go away. That I’ll wake up and it will be hours earlier, and I’ll be leaning against a tree while my grandfather searches the woods for nothing.
But no amount of hoping makes the soldier kneeling beside me go away.
My breathing finally steadies, and I sit up slowly.
“Okay now?”
I nod. I’m not okay, but this guy doesn’t need to think I’m any more of a lunatic.
He straightens and reaches his hand out. I carefully rise to my feet next to him. He’s several inches taller than me, almost six feet tall, though slightly shorter and broader than Wes.
Wes.
I push him out of my mind and look at the man standing in front of me. His cheeks are round and full, boyish. Some part of me notices that he has pale eyes,
