Hi everyone, sorry for the delay. I got caught up in Jennifer Armentrout's Lux series (so good!), and then between work, kids, and choir I've been exhausted. I finally started back up, and I'm getting excited. Things are about to heat up!


Chapter 12 – Ready to Light Her Up

Here we go again.

Future Wyatt sat in the driver's seat of the car lent by Christopher, staring at the apartment that would change everything.

He shuddered as he remembered the last time he came to this location. The world around him had appeared blurry, his head heavy and his heart stuttering. To believe that his wife, the one he had pined after for years, could be alive that very moment was inconceivable. And to really put a spin on this turbulent night, the discovery came right after he opened himself to new possibilities and learned to love again, with Lucy – it was almost too much to bear.

He remembered nearly turning back from the apartment numerous times – it couldn't be true, it had to be a trick. But he had to see – he had to. Then he knocked and when Jess opened the door, it felt like he had zoomed through a tunnel. Suddenly the world sharpened around him, his heart picked up, the colors were too bright, and Jess was right there. Not fractured with dull, dead eyes, but alive and vibrant. She reached out and grabbed his shirt, whispering, "Come here soldier." Her lips crashed onto his. He stood stock still, stunned. He should have been jubilant, but he kept thinking, "She doesn't smell like Lucy." Suddenly, Jess pulled him into the apartment and closed the door, then shoved him against a wall and started ravaging his neck. "Wait," he'd muttered. "Wait, Jess, Jessica, we – we have to talk – we - "

And then nothing. Nothing but darkness. Wyatt wished it had just stayed dark. Then he wouldn't have woken up into his new life in hell.

Wyatt took a deep, cleansing breath. Not again. He would fix it. He had to.

"Sooooo, are we just going to sit here, or are we going to do something?"

Wyatt flicked his eyes over to Jiya. "So antsy, Marri?"

"Heck ya," Jiya nodded. "I'm ready to light her up."

"Nope, nope, no," Wyatt slashed his hand through the air.

"What? What do you mean no?" Jiya retorted.

"Look, Jiya, I get it. You deserve revenge more than any of us. But you have to think of who is more valuable here. Me, with almost no useful time travelling skills other than fighting, and no family? Or the genius woman who got us here, and who is a mother to the cutest little boy in the whole world?"

Jiya's eyes begin to fill. "I can't do nothing," she murmured.

Wyatt grabbed her left shoulder and began to stroke it. "I still need you. I need you to stake out the apartment, and make sure no one is there other than Jess. When I woke up last time, Emma was waiting with Jess. I don't know if she was there at the start."

Jiya's eyebrows scrunched. "How am I supposed to do that?"

Wyatt grinned, and pulled out his phone. He dialed a number. "Hello, Domino's?"


This was it. This was the day she had finally, finally been waiting for. The day that Jess's life would begin, afresh.

Emma had called her hours ago and told her that it was finally showtime. Jess just needed to text Wyatt, ask him if he was coming to their apartment, and act herself. As if she hadn't already been acting that way for years. Emma told her not to act too surprised if Wyatt appeared…off, or stared at her a lot, whatever that meant. Emma also told her to distract Wyatt, and then when ready, knock his ass out and keep him there until Emma arrived. Jess rubbed the taser she had tucked into the back of her jeans. A few bolts to the neck would surely bring Wyatt to the floor.

She had sacrificed so goddamn much. Did she have a career related to the study of history? Nope, she tended drunks from Army base to Army base. She and Wyatt were dirt poor. She had to smile and bat her eyes at Wyatt, and pretend she loved him, while all she did was resent him.

It nearly killed her when she learned he had been roped into time travel for Mason industries. Not that he had bothered to tell her. Noooooo, the job was too important. Emma had informed her, instead. Wyatt didn't give a shit about history, but yet he got to travel through it. It had made her nearly blind with rage. And then when she met Wyatt at a bar after a long day at work, and he introduced his new coworker Lucy, Jess was forced to act all friendly and dumb. Bleh. Lucy had everything, everything she wanted. A history degree? Check. Time travel? Check. Lucy even had Carol as a mother, and Noah as a fiance, but the idiot woman had thrown him away like garbage. Bitch.

Jessica knew for a fact that Noah was a catch, both in an operating room and the bedroom. They had met at a Rittenhouse training course about first aid. If Carol had ever learned that Jess and Noah were burning up their bedroom sheets (and the kitchen counters, and the bathroom showers…), Carol would have had a conniption. But when the time came for Noah and Lucy to become an item, Jess lost him too.

Jessica was ready for it all to be over.

Jess heard a knock. Showtime. She pressed her face to the door to look through the peephole, and felt her shoulders slump. She whipped open the door.

"Can I help you?" Jess asked.

A thin woman's wide brown eyes just stared at her. She had a low Army green baseball cap covering her very short dark brown hair. She was holding a pizza box in her hands deeply tanned hands, and wore a simple grey shirt with brown cargo pants. The woman remained silent.

"Excuse me? You knocked?" Jess prodded.

"Oh, um, yea, I'm looking for a, um, Edward."

Jess rolled her eyes. "Wrong place. No Edward here." Jess began to shut the door.

Suddenly the woman propped her foot against the edge of the door, stopping it mid-swing. "Are you sure? Is there anyone with you who may have called it in?"

"No one else is here," Jess hissed. "Now please leave."

The woman grinned wickedly. "My bad. Have a great day!"

Jess slammed the door. From the coffee table she grabbed a glass of red wine she had poured and gulped it down. She was having to drink more and more when she was around Wyatt, just to get through their time together.

Suddenly a knock rang through the apartment. Jess ran up to the door, and whipped it open when she saw Wyatt standing in the hall. He wore jeans and a Navy blue Henley. When she opened the door, he didn't seem stunned to see her; just, very, very focused on her.

"Hiya, hunny," Wyatt greeted her loudly with a smile. He stepped in and slammed the door shut behind him. "I'm home!"

Time to earn your keep, Jess, she thought. She reached out to the collar of his shirt and hooked a finger in it. "Come here, soldier" she purred.

"Miss me?" Wyatt asked with a quirked eyebrow. Funny, he had a twinkle in his eyes that wasn't there a few days ago.

"Of course I did, I always do." Jess quipped back. Where was this supposed awkwardness? Emma had made it sound like Wyatt was supposed to be just tripping over his feet at seeing her, but this man was more confident and cocky than the last time she saw him. Jess went to kiss him, but suddenly Wyatt gripped her hips and leaned towards her ear, then bit it hard. Jess couldn't help but jerk, knowing if he felt the taser at her back, the gig would be up. "I have a surprise for you," he whispered into her ear, fingers digging through her jeans.

"Ohhhh," Jess replied. "And what could that possibly be?" Jess tried to sidestep him and get him to the wall.

Wyatt suddenly walked into her, and began backing her up to the dining table close to the entrance. Wyatt yanked out one of the chairs, and shoved Jess into it, not so lightly. Well, this was interesting. Wyatt leaned forward and whispered into her ear, "How about we play a little game?"

"Umm…"Jess gulped. Okay, this wasn't at all what she was expecting. Her heart raced. Next thing she knew, Wyatt stepped around the chair, and yanked her arms back to cross her wrists behind the back of the seat. "Ouch!" she muttered. She tried to slouch to make sure the taser stayed hidden under her shirt.

"Awww, don't tell me that hurt," Wyatt murmured. She heard something make a whir, and suddenly something tightened around her wrists. She glanced over her shoulder to see a white zip strip locking her hands together. She yanked and nothing happened. Jess began to panic. This wasn't going to plan at all.

"What the hell, Wyatt?" she growled. "Don't tell me you got an appetite for some rough play on this trip."

Wyatt leaned back toward her and just grinned. "Oh, I thought we would just have something special tonight."

"Huh," Jess responded. "Seems a little…Fifty Shades of Greyish of you."

Wyatt laughed as he reached into his back pocket. "I was thinking more, Buffy and Angel. You know, when he went bad and betrayed her." He whipped out a bandana, and suddenly forced it over Jess's eyes. "

Jess squirmed in the sudden darkness. "Okay, Wyatt, this is getting a little too weird for me. How about we take off the blindfold and go somewhere else, hmm?"

She heard silence, then she felt Wyatt's breath on her cheek. "I'm not letting you go until you tell me everything you know about Rittenhouse."

Jesus. H. Roosevelt Christ. Jess sat stunned, when suddenly she felt her hemline yanked up, and the taser pulled from her pants.

No, no I did not give up my life just to get stopped now. Jess titled her chair up to stand on her feet, swung it with all her might in the direction of Wyatt's voice. Rittenhouse had trained her – now it was time to fight.