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No Time Left
"I know who the Witness is," Cole tells Cassie as she holds his head on her lap.
"Who is it?" Cassie asks.
"It's Ramse," Cole says as he grimaces, then murmurs, "He betrayed us."
Cole's eyelids droop.
"Cole!" Cassie shouts. "Cole!"
When he doesn't answer panic rises in her and she takes action, jumping to her feet and racing upstairs to get her First Aid Kit. She returns to the room in thirty seconds flat with the kit in one hand and a pillow in the other.
After placing the pillow under Cole's head she gets to work patching up his stab wound. It only takes minutes, but it feels like hours, each second being precious. Cole had already lost so much blood.
Once Cassie has stitched up Cole's wound she stands and leaves him to set up the cot he sometimes used when he stayed the night in 2015 and grabs a blue blanket and pillow from the chest she keeps in the library's main room.
As soon as the cot is ready Cassie returns to Cole's side and gives his shoulder a shake.
"Cole," she calls. "Cole you need to wake up."
Cole stirs and looks up at her with half-mast eyes. Cassie breathes a sigh of relief.
"We need to get you to the cot," Cassie tells him. "I can't carry you on my own."
Cole nods weakly and Cassie helps him up into a sit, then into a stand. Cole grunts and groans. Slowly, with Cole's arm over Cassie's shoulder, they stumble over to the cot and Cassie does her best to help him ease his body down onto it.
Once Cole is settled down Cassie covers him with the blanket from the chest and automatically swipes some stray hair out of his sweaty face.
"I'll be right back," she promises as Cole closes his eyes again.
She goes into the kitchen to get him a glass of water but when she returns Cole is fast asleep and she decides to let him rest.
She grabs a chair from the desk and sits down besides him.
With the adrenaline that was coursing through her veins while she was patching Cole up dying down, Cassie begins feeling fatigue from the long day but shakes her head. Refusing to fall asleep, not wanting to, at least not yet.
She places a hand on Cole's left arm and thinks for a while. She thinks about what he's told her about Ramse. He was Cole's best friend. She knew that much. And he was the Witness? Cassie studies Cole's pale face and shakes her head. She can't imagine the feeling of betrayal Cole must have felt when he found that out. She wonders if Ramse was the one who stabbed him.
Cassie brings her free hand up to her face and cups one side, putting the weight of her head on it. Before she knows it she's dozing off.
Cassie wakes early the next morning to a kinked neck and the sound of thrashing. She glances up to see Cole is having some sort of nightmare.
She stands up and places a hand on his chest. "Cole. Cole wake up."
He is startled awake by her touch.
Cassie studies his face, noting his sunken eyes and how he is even paler than the night before. "You look worse."
She helps him lift his head and tips the glass of water she got him against his lips.
"It's the time travel," Cole murmurs after he drinks some of the water.
Cassie puts the glass down on the desk behind them as he settles back down on the cot.
"There must be something I can do," she says.
Cole shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Cassie. There isn't."
He closes his eyes again and Cassie turns away as she desperately tries to think of something, anything to do. She decides to take a small blood sample from his arm and takes the syringe upstairs to look at his blood under the microscope.
What she sees through the lens amazes and terrifies her at the same time. His blood cells are moving unusually fast, and they're also dying right before her eyes.
Cassie sits back in her desk chair and tries to think of a way she could help, but she is stumped until she remembers the note. The note Cole always carried on him since his visit to 2017. He hadn't said much about their meeting then but he'd told her that she'd said the address on it would save his life.
So Cassie heads back downstairs and grabs Cole's jacket off the library desk, quickly rummaging through its pockets. She finds the note with her handwriting on it in the right front pocket and reads the address. It was for some place in Manhattan.
Cassie pulls her cell phone out of her pocket and dials the only person she can ask for help with Cole.
Aaron picks up on the second ring. "Cassie?"
"Aaron, I need your help," Cassie says. "I need to go to New York but I can't leave Cole alone."
She explains to him the basics of what happened since they'd last spoken and Aaron agrees to go over and stay at the library while she takes a flight out to Manhattan.
When she hangs up with him Cassie quickly packs a bag and sits by Cole's side once more while waiting for Aaron to arrive.
"I'm going to be back with help as soon as I can," Cassie tells an unconscious Cole. "Just hang in there for a little longer, okay?"
He makes an inaudible noise, most likely in reaction to whatever he is dreaming about at the moment, but Cassie decides to take it as a yes and gets up on her feet just as there is a knock on the front door.
"See you soon," Cassie says to Cole, briefly studying his face one more time before turning to the door, bag in hand.
Determined to do whatever it would take to save him.