Rewrite Redemption (58 page)
Read Rewrite Redemption Online
Authors: J.H. Walker
We’re in training—you know—to protect the time line. Yeah, think about it. It’s so freakin cool! With Charlie at the helm, the Guild is totally different than the one Constantine knew. Once we’ve finished training, we’ll go on missions to rewrite the timeline. I try to imagine myself doing that, but I can’t quite get there yet. Still, I know how to hide and wear a disguise. It’s a start.
Constantine told me about melding. I didn’t care. Maybe sharing his experiences made me feel connected, but that wasn’t why I loved him. Anyway, it didn’t matter. We had time now to figure out what was going on with the two of us. We were having a really fun time working on that.
Con’s integration was really confusing. We didn’t know it at the time, but the Guild Con had mentioned when we took him the message, was the Guild run by Charlie. Yeah, that timeline had already been changed before Lex and I made it to Seattle. And in the new timeline, Charlie had made sure that that Constantine and the other me never met so that nothing interfered with Lex and my trip.
Charlie did a lot of planning over the years to make sure everything worked out smoothly. But the important thing—at least to me—is that Con kept all the memories of us together: the hallway, in the past…everything.
After his visit with Charlie, Con returned to current time. Once he integrated with the Constantine I had kissed half a year earlier, he knew he had been wrong about Ipod and me. That Constantine had been going nuts all those months, waiting for the tenth of May. After that kiss, he wanted to track me down immediately. But this time he used forethought and waited so he didn’t chance screwing things up.
Since the timeline had been changed, Con no longer had a travel block. He showed up shortly before Lex and I arrived back at the tree house, using the branch Lex had left on his coffee table. He cleared things up with Ipod. He met my parents. He talked to Charlie again. It’s funny how Con could have arrived before Lex and I did. It’s complicated, this time travel stuff…
really
complicated. When I flung Constantine back, and he told Charlie why he disappeared at random, it changed
everything
.
Sure, Con did most of it. He rewrote the original timeline. He was the one who told Charlie how to find the Guild and rescue Ipod. But I sent him there. If I hadn’t done that, Charlie would never have found out he wasn’t crazy. Of course, Charlie built the tree house in the first place. So he started it all. Without that, we might not even be here.
Okay, maybe Sam would be here, but he’d be a mess. Well, maybe not because my mom wouldn’t have killed herself, if I hadn’t been born and then disappeared, making her think she was crazy. But then, if Charlie hadn’t disappeared, she wouldn’t have joined Greenpeace and met Sam. And who knows
who
Sam might have met. My God, he might have married the Chihuahua. Then maybe I’d be Lex…or no, a combination of Lex and me. I’d be Ajex.
It’s really freakin confusing.
When it comes right down to it, I saved my mother. I saved my father, too. Okay, I didn’t exactly swoop down with a cape and yank them from a burning building. I’m no super hero. But if I hadn’t been born, they wouldn’t be here.
Salvation by existence.
If it weren’t for my strangeness, none of this would have happened. It’s hysterical, really. Talk about irony. I’m like a freakin hero in Guild history. Yeah, me!
Bite
that
Sloane Cheney!
I guess I’m not jinxed. Suddenly, I have—you know—hope and even a bit of confidence. I mean, come on…I have Constantine!
How cool is that?
Constantine? What can I say about him? Oh. My. God. It would take volumes. But as Lex says, “tick tock.”
Places to go, people to see…
Timelines to rewrite.
Dear Readers:
This note is for you…yes, YOU, the wonderful people who took the time to read my book. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I loved writing
Rewrite Redemption
. And by the time you read this, I will be hard at work on the sequel.
This is my first book. Even though I’m coming from complete obscurity, I chose to self-publish because I believe that is the wave of the future. This book will rise or fall, depending completely on
your
opinion—you, the reader. If you liked the book and want to tell your friends about it, that helps me. And if you want to rate or review it on Goodreads or Amazon, you’re really doing me a solid. Thank you. Only time will tell how it all turns out.
I’d love to hear from you. Tell me what you liked and what you didn’t. Tell me the kinds of books you’d like to see in the future. I hope to have the next book out sometime in 2014. Until then, please keep in touch with my website:
www.jhwalkerbooks.com
. I will blog from time to time.
With much appreciation,
J.H. Walker
This book is dedicated, with endless love, to my husband and partner, Rod. Without you this book would not exist.
The young adult genre is brand new to me. I was a sci-fi/fantasy buff. I was never fond of elves, or dragons, or talking animals. Nor did I like intergalactic warfare. But take a book with a contemporary character and add a paranormal twist, give it an alternative sociological aspect, or set it in the future…that was my kind of reading. You had to search far and wide, but there were authors giving characters paranormal abilities and circumstances before some of today’s Y.A. authors were even born. And as for dystopia, if you haven’t read Octavia Butler’s
Parable of the Talents
, you’re missing out. Thanks to all of you, the writers of my early years. You opened up my mind as to what might be possible.
My endless thanks and appreciation to Rachael Harp, my brilliant and creative designer, for her stunning work on my website, the book cover, the chapter images, and everything I’ve used for J.H. Walker Books. My thanks to Steven Truex for building the website. You guys rock!
My sincere thanks to Kris Kendall, for her tireless effort in finding and correcting the many flaws in my manuscript. If any remain, it’s because I continued to revise and edit for four months after what was to have been her final proofread—my bad. Grammatical errors that remain are the result of my stubbornness in having my characters stay true to their voices and not grammar.
My thanks and love to my daughter for reading the manuscript and for all her suggestions and support. The same to my son for being the source of much of Constantine’s voice. It’s all good. I love you guys.
And last, but not least, there is one person without whom this book would never have been written…my husband and partner in all things. You kept my computer world running, which is no small feat. Although this is a young adult novel, you listened to me read it out loud—twice. Then you read it yourself several times. You turned it from a Word document to an eBook. This book is better because of you. This book
exists
because of you. Your support of the project and me was unwavering. You are my person, the love of my life. When Fate sent you to me, she, as my characters might say, did me a solid.
© 2013 by J.H. Walker, Inc
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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