Time of Fate (Wealth of Time Series #6) by Andre Gonzalez (e book reader online txt) 📗

in place a chain of calls to all the Revolution chapter leaders across North America. It was a mission buried in the back of the massive Revolution handbooks that were stored in each office, but the instructions were rather straightforward.

He had fallen asleep in his all-black suit, but now took it off and reached under the bed where a rotation of different outfits waited for him to choose. They were tailored to fit in with his surroundings: jeans, sweatpants, sweaters, thick hoodies, and a heavy winter jacket. If he had walked into town wearing a suit, the locals would surely question the strange old man with frosty hair. Some might even follow him back to the cabin, which would only lead to their death and an investigation by the lone sheriff who worked in Angle Inlet.

Time no longer mattered to Chris, the next two weeks set to be strictly inside the cabin with the occasional trip outside for fresh air, alone in the wilderness. Seeing that it was only 5 A.M. didn’t matter, so he finished getting dressed, slipped into the winter jacket, and stepped outside into a brisk ten degrees.

His body shivered as he kicked patches of snow, glancing around the woods, the silence maddening. A breeze whistled through the trees, and Chris remembered from the summer he had spent at the cabin how the woods tended to make sounds of their own. The slightest of sounds would echo, much like a cave. When the wind howled, the echo dragged the sound out longer, sometimes mimicking a pack of hyenas.

“Hello!” Chris barked, his voice bouncing in every direction before coming back to him like a boomerang. He stared around in amazement, mouth agape with a slight grin. His one word had turned into at least thirty words by the time the echo faded away. “Too fun,” he whispered.

The cold bothered him, his joints tightening as he started through the woods, following the signs he could see more clearly thanks to dawn casting a soft orange glow across the sky. The carvings were faint, obvious only to Chris. Every other tree was numbered to point him in the right direction, the cabin being zero. Odd numbers signified a path to the north toward the airport, even numbers leading south toward town. A walk in either direction was roughly twenty minutes from the cabin, depending on the conditions. Last night had taken much longer from the airport thanks to the darkness of night.

Chris rounded the cabin and started south, the air biting his lungs with each breath. “Gonna be a long trip,” he muttered under his breath, wondering why it was taking so long for his abilities to return. Alaska had been an easy choice for his previous headquarters because he had been immune to the cold weather, never having to worry about stepping outside with a jacket regardless of the temperature.

It’s just two weeks, he thought. Two weeks until getting back into the swing of things, having a full return of my abilities, and squashing the Road Runners like the miserable bugs they are.

He giggled at the thought, shaking his head in disbelief that he had actually fallen this far, still not able to quite grasp the reality of it all. The Road Runners were supposed to be long gone by now, and he wondered where he had gone wrong. Strike’s death created the divide he needed within their horrendous organization, but he never could land the final blow. Their structure had too many checks and balances in place, the failed mission of killing all their Council perhaps the critical turning point. If that had been accomplished as planned, they would have had no one to turn to, no rulebook to check and see who must take power. Anarchy would have swept through the Road Runners, leaving every single member vulnerable without the protection of the organization behind them.

“Keep moving,” he told himself, pushing through the only uphill portion of the route. “You can still make it happen, just make the phone call.”

Chris pulled his phone out of his pocket, just to see if it had caught any signal. It hadn’t, and he hobbled faster through the never-ending stand of trees, ignoring the sharp pains that gnawed on his leg.

After gaining another hundred feet on the ground, he froze and spun around, convinced he heard footsteps behind him. At least forty tall, lanky trees stared back, the soft echo of his own footsteps still bouncing around. He stood there for an entire minute, scanning left to right and back again. “Hello?” he called out, not for fun this time, but because his paranoia was getting the best of him. He didn’t feel eyes watching him, but he did sense a presence in the area.

His voice ricocheted around the trees like a pinball, and when it died down, left him back in the deafening silence.

Gain your composure, man, he told himself. No one knows you’re here, and even if they did, they’d have no way of finding you. That’s the point—always has been for this little shack in the woods.

Chris nodded before pivoting back around and continuing toward the town. “Don’t lose your mind,” he whispered to himself, weary of having his voice continue to swirl around him as he trudged through the trees. “This is not the time.”

The sounds of footsteps continued, but he brushed them aside as his own echoes. He stole a glance over his shoulders every few steps, but never saw anyone. Once his invincibility kicked back in, he’d have nothing to fear and could go for a simple stroll through the woods without worry. “What’s taking so long?”

He started to wonder if something had indeed happened to Colin. The plane could have actually crashed into the surrounding lakes and no one would ever know. And until Chris felt a sense of normalcy, he had to assume his life was still in danger. The trip to town needed to be quick, as any additional time spent