Tristan looked between them, rubbing his arms, and hoping he wouldn’t have another spasm any time soon. His latest teleport had taken them to a hayloft. It was a little smelly, but not too bad. Plenty of nice straw about the place.
Zac closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Isaac was just sort of staring into space, as if he was having trouble computing what had happened.
“Well, you know how I told you an alien screwed up the timeline?” Zac said.
“Of course.”
“Her name was Amarita. I wasn’t surprised about Ike because that’s… that’s how things were going when the time loop ended,” Zac replied lamely.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Isaac said.
“Well… no… not when you’re in your right mind. But she meddled with y- us. And I’m sorry, Ike, but you weren’t yourself.”
Taylor swallowed, his telepathy inadvertently picking up Zac’s thoughts and memories of that series of events. He shuddered involuntarily. Zac’s eyes flickered towards him.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Isaac insisted.
“No, not now you wouldn’t,” Taylor said. “Not in this timeline.”
“Not in any time line! That’s not me! I would never ki- do that!”
“Of course it’s not you, that was the whole point,” Zac said. “She turned you into someone you weren’t.”
“And me too,” Taylor said, shaking his head. “I - he was insane. There’s no other way to describe what… what his empathic signature looked like. It was a real mess. I – he loved her and hated her all the same time, but there was too much… death, despair, loneliness…”
Taylor swallowed. The idea that he had ended up like that…
“Hurray for aliens who took responsibility of their own in this timeline,” Zac said. “Well, ours anyway.”
“Sounds like something to toast to,” Tristan said, having felt uncomfortable throughout the entire conversation. “Wonder what happened to you, though.”
“Oh, I can tell you that,” Taylor said, a little reluctantly.
“Yeah?”
“I caught his thought on the way out. You died too, not long after Avery did.”
“Huh. I guess none of us looked at the grave next to Avie’s.”
“Car accident. He remembered… he remembered Amarita laughing about it, and saying something about you deserving it for interfering. I’m guessing she was probably responsible.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. I think that my restoration was what kept reversing the changes she kept making,” Zac said. “Probably the only way she could stop it.”
Taylor opened his mouth to respond, when the barn door opened, and in came a guy, hand in hand with a rather pretty girl. The boy, whoever he was, had a striking resemblance to the four boys on the loft. The two kissed.
“Umm, guys? I think they’re headed this way,” Tristan whispered.