[a little background before you read this excerpt: Laken Mitchell wants to get even with the girls who bullied her, but when she discovers their troubles - what makes them behave this way - her compassionate nature compels her to help them instead. Maybe sending them to the last century is a bit extreme, but it solves everyone's problems. Almost.]
excerpt:
It was one in the morning and I had a golden opportunity for
revenge. I couldn’t help myself. I took her to the lab. She was not too drunk
to walk up to the third floor, but she was definitely too out of it to realize
that my telling her to lie down on the ‘massage table’ was not going to end
well for her.
I chose that day’s date and some random coordinates close to what
was already on the screen. What did I care?
Poof, the bitch was gone. And nobody was going to think anything
other than that she ran away from home.
I locked up and stepped outside. The dark monastery in the middle
of the woods was creepy enough after midnight, but before I could open the car door
I heard far off shrieks, like the sound a rabbit makes when a bobcat pounces.
The screams were faint at first, then frantic. And human. I grabbed the
flashlight from the car, pushed the gate all the way open and ran for the path
to town. Between the ghastly moonlight and the fairly strong beam in my hand I
followed the trail to the rusty car. The cries were growing less frequent.
“Help me.”
Erica was impaled on the bumper of the old vehicle. Part of her
left leg was buried in the ground along with her left arm up to her elbow. She
looked like someone rising out of bed, but sinking down at the same time. Blood
dripped into the dirt.
I choked back bile to keep my hysteria at bay. “Shh, I’ll get you
out. Stop screaming.”
I searched around for something to dig with and used a couple of
sticks to free her leg and arm from the ground. I pulled on her to help her
stand and the shriek that pierced the night was unearthly. A rusty shard of
metal broke off and more blood gushed.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I really was. She didn’t deserve
what was happening to her, not for being mean to me, or for being a bully, or
anything. But what could I do? She’d seen the time machine. Even drunk she had
to realize she traveled from the lab into the forest, into the ground actually,
by incomprehensible means.
I tore off my shirt and tied it around her, hoping to stem the flow
of blood. I needed her to walk back. We got halfway back before she dropped to
her knees. She’d soaked through my shirt and neither of us could hold enough
pressure on the wound.
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