Storm Front: NA Fantasy/Time Travel (Tesla Time Travelers Book 3) by Jen Greyson Read Free Book Online Page B

room, guy in my house with Penya. “I can’t be sure. I have to assume they’re all able to travel. Anyone can.” I repeat Penya’s words, so comforting and full of wonder when she first told me. Now, it’s a promise of evil on my heels. Yet, there’s a singular comfort. “ I’m the only one who can alter history, so they can’t come kill me before it’s time.”
    He chuckles. “Dear, there are things far worse than death.”
    My stomach plummets and I struggle to swallow. “That’s not helpful.”
    He leans forward and links his fingers on the table. “Au contrair, pretty girl. You can’t keep outrunning your troubles. Trouble always catches up.”
    “I’m not trying—” He stops me with a look. He wants to help and I asked him to. “I can’t stop them all from coming.”
    “How many do you have?” He juts his chin toward my pad.
    “Eight.”
    “Plus the two I saw nosing about. They’re not current FBI, but we can’t discount them. From what you’ve told me so far, they’re active players.”
    I nod and write FBI, non-FBI dudes. “There were two other men in black that harassed me in the hotel when I was with Nikola in the beginning. They came to my room.”
    “Add them. That’s twelve.”
    “Then someone leaked my whereabouts to Morgan.” I add those names, struggling with how fast they’re adding up and regretting my decision to leave Constantine at home. Morgan, Morgan’s man in the basement.
    “I’m not so sure.” I’d told him about Morgan threatening Tesla and about the guy I’d chased into the basement while Nikola lay dying. “What makes you think Morgan sent him?”
    “He told me so.”
    “Could have given you any name. What’s his credibility? Whoever he’s working for told him any number of lies, knowing he’d pass them on to you.” He sets his pen down on the pad and folds his hands. “Little disappointed you believed him. Always consider the source.”
    I blink.
    “If the man was someone sent by Penya, she could have told him to tell you Morgan sent him. It’s classic misdirection, girly.”
    “Holy shit.”
    Steinaman waves me onward. “What’s next? Come on, girl. No time for stalling.”
    A knock at the door freezes us both. He lifts a finger to his lips and I nod, feeling really uncomfortable that he clearly wasn’t expecting anyone. I stand and ready my lightning, trailing him into the living room. He pauses and signals me to back up until I’m hidden behind the corner of the wall.
    The clomp of his cane carries him toward the door, with a stopover at the curio cabinet. He slides the drawer open on silent hinges and removes a weapon, pulls it from the holster and cocks it, then lays it on the corner of the polished wood surface. We both wish he’d worn a holster today. He glances at me and nods firmly. I answer with a crackling burst of lightning.
    We’re set.

C HAPTER 16

    W HEN HE OPENS the door to Mr. Gray , I’m unsurprised. He’s younger than I remember, but otherwise the same, including the hat.
    “Yes?” Steinman shifts just enough so I can see past him, but it’s that motion that is his undoing. Gray’s hand strikes out at Brant’s neck, a device held in his palm. Steinaman crumples with a muttered curse of surprise and I launch from behind the wall, bullwhips blazing. Gray is unsurprised to see me,   rotating toward me with the stretched out lightbulb looking thing he used to attack Brant. He’s holding the narrow metal tube end and pointing the oval glass ball end at me, but it’s not firing anything. Whatever it is, it’s not a gun; maybe something he has to use in close quarters.  
    No way am I letting him get close to me with that thing. I draw my arm forward and strike, aiming for his hands. Nothing happens. My lightning is gone. I aim with my left, same motion, same thick bolt of lightning that’s never failed me. But it does.
    I scrambled backward as he advances, forming a ball in my hands, but the second it becomes