The Metropolis Series #2: Quinn Beyond Bounds
19. The Spanish House

REWIND TIME!

Rewind time!

Dammit, Quinn, just rewind time!

◀◀

“You three stay here,” Julio said again. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. “I’ll—” Then, he stopped. “Hold on, what just happened? I was just about to get the car, then… Here I am again.”

He scanned his surroundings, taking time to process what had just happened. Then, he shot me a look.

I knew that Julio was different. He wasn’t a Metropolitan like almost everyone else I knew. When I went back in time, people around me usually didn’t feel it.

But I saw the look Julio had given me. He knew that I had rewound time.

“I know,” Takahiro said. “Earlier, something like this also happened when—”

“You found me, of course…” said a voice from behind us.

The three of us turned around. We saw Tamara’s eyes glow red. Again, the voice that just spoke wasn’t hers, and she stood pompously as if she had just won a deadly bet.

Cassandra had taken over Tamara’s body.

Lemme tell you guys that the horror of having no control over your own body is exponentially increased when the dreadful Cassandra Diaz takes over you. The only time (hopefully) she had taken over me was when she stabbed Rachael in the bathroom. The most troubling part was I had been conscious, trying my best to counter the horrid things Cassandra was making me do.

So, I could just imagine that the real Tamara was in there somewhere, frightened that Cassandra was making her take at least three steps forward… slowly, getting closer and closer to us…

We ran.

Without any further questions, Julio and Takahiro scrambled for the hill, slashing through bushes as their lives depended on it. Meanwhile, I trailed behind, trying to summon another time warp. I stopped, turning towards the Cassandra-possessed Tamara and tried to concentrate, telling myself to rewind time, rewind time, rewind time over and over again.

Tamara was just a few feet away, slowly creeping up to me as she cast a ghostly silhouette over an ominous horizon. However, no matter how dark it was, I could see that Cassandra was smiling menacingly through Tamara’s pristine white teeth, and the googly eyes on Tamara’s shark hat shook to the rhythm of her steps.

“C’mon…” I muttered to myself. “Come on…”

I heard Julio scream from the top of the hill. “Quinn, c’mon! What the hell are you doing?”

I glanced at him. He was angry, alright, but I stayed where I stood.

Cassandra stopped. She looked at me from head to toe, chuckling. “What are you doing, Quinn?” she asked in a silvery tone. “Trying to be the hero?”

I scoffed. “Go away, Cassandra. And leave Tamara alone!”

“You’re foolish for standing up to them…” She shook her head, slowly approaching me. “Because you’re—”

In a blink of an eye, a knife then flew past me, making its way into Tamara’s arm. I stood there in shock, then I glanced at where the sharp object had flown from: behind me.

“Julio!” I shrieked.

Quickly, he grabbed my arm, dragging me up the hill and making me drop my flashlight.

“We need to go, Quinn,” he said. “Now.”

I didn’t want to go. I still wasn’t able to rewind time, and I’d be disappointed with myself if I wouldn’t be able to. However, the one thing that propelled me to retreat was the image of Cassandra flickering against Tamara’s, like the two girls were internally fighting against each other.

I kept my eyes glued to whatever was in front of me. I didn’t want to see that ever again.

As I fastened myself to the front seat, Julio started the engine, cursing in Tagalog as he drove backwards into a pile of bushes. He then took a sharp turn into the deep, dark forest. The road was rough and rigid, but he didn’t care.

“Hold on!” he warned. He then stepped on the accelerator, and the car rattled back and forth.

“Julio, slow down!” I cried.

“We can’t,” he said firmly. “You don’t know Cassandra. We cannot underestimate her.”

The car continued to shake violently.

“Takahiro,” he then called. “Any sign of her?”

The boy’s face turned pale, but he crawled to the rear window, checking for any signs of Tamara or Cassandra lurking in the dark. Fortunately, the only things that seemed to stay behind us were a dimly lit trail and a few violent shakes from the rocks below.

“None!” Takahiro yelled.

“Good,” Julio said. “We’re almost there.”

I guess almost there meant a matter of seconds because the view of a mansion began to shimmer on the horizon. It had towering stone walls and elaborately decorated grills on the doors and windows. I hadn’t seen anything like it in the Metropolis; it looked like something that had come straight from a history textbook.

Julio parked the car by the mansion’s massive front door. He then charged through the entrance, startling a few kids and teens that hung out in what looked like a foyer. There must have been at least twenty people there.

“Call everyone down here right now,” Julio demanded. “We need to set up defenses.”

A girl with long, wavy blonde hair jogged up to him, asking, “Julio, what’s going on?”

Julio only had to say one word to get everyone’s attention. At the mere mention of Cassandra’s name, everything in the foyer began moving in slow motion, like reality had moved too fast for them to grasp.

“What are you all doing?” Julio demanded. “Move. Now!”

They scrambled to their feet, whirring around the foyer as Julio ordered them to surround the area. The blonde girl broke an emergency alarm case and cranked it, setting off a thousand bells across the entire house. Moments later, lines of even more kids and teenagers hastily made their way down the two flights of stairs on each side of the foyer.

“This is not a drill,” the blonde girl yelled. “I repeat, this is not a drill! Get to your stations. Protect each other at all costs.”

As a bunch of kids headed out the different exits (there must have been at least four archways that lead to a veranda), Takahiro groggily made his way through the main entrance, his face green and his hands clobbering for any antique furniture to hold on to.

“What did I miss?” he groaned, asking me.

“And you two, what are you doing?” And thus, the blonde girl had made her appearance in front of us. She looked scary up close, her voice making me shiver, but her purple pajamas threw off the demeanor.

“It’s okay, Mackenzie,” Julio said. “These two are from The MacGuffin.”

Mackenzie raised a brow. “The MacGuffin, huh? Then what are they doing on front-line territory?”

“Don’t worry, they’re with me. They have leads on Yukine.”

The girl narrowed her eyes. “Yukine?”

“Yes, but it’s confidential for now. There are certain things I want to clear out with them before we can tell the others.”

“Understood.”

Julio glanced at us. “For now, these two need a place to stay for the night. Especially now with Cassandra out there.”

Mackenzie brushed some hair out of her face. “Okay, fine. There are a few vacant rooms on the third floor. Lead them there. I’d better check on everyone else.”

“Thanks, Mackenzie.”

And Mackenzie charged into combat: purple pajamas and all. (If she were one of those characters made in the Author’s childhood, then I wouldn’t be surprised.)

The foyer was then silent, filled with the sound of chirping crickets from outside the house. Julio motioned us to the side where ornate wooden benches were placed against the walls. Before turning to us, he looked around to check if the coast was clear.

“Look, guys,” he began. “I found a girl and Cassandra on the other side of the Lethe.”

And at those words, the archway of the foyer began to display something different. Instead of a view of Mackenzie assembling a bunch of kids for combat, I saw the River Lethe flowing along the veranda, and the entire room suddenly felt cold. I think Julio was trying to tell us something, but his words blurred out in the background. As I looked closer, I noticed two female figures on the other side of the river.

It was Harumi and Cassandra, and they looked like they were arguing.

My heart raced. I wanted to run to them. I wanted to save Harumi. However, no matter how far I ran, they remained far, far away.

And for a minute, I thought I had rewound time, but in truth, I wasn’t able to. The past had just projected in front of me, and as Cassandra pushed Harumi into the Lethe, all I could do was watch.