Restored (The Missing: Book 9) [Formerly Titled Rescued]

Chapter Two

Jonah turned to Katherine to tell her about the glassy people ahead, but she was already digging her fingers into his arm, balking his forward movement.

"Jordan, Jonah, Chip, look! Time travelers!" Katherine hissed, jerking her head in their direction.

Jonah squinted. He could clearly tell that there was one woman and one man. The woman had shoulder-length hair and the man had a beard, but he couldn't tell much more about the invisible time travelers from that distance.

"Should we say something to them?" Chip asked quietly.

"No," Jonah replied quickly.

"Why not? In the future, we're famous. I mean, we saved time itself. I'm sure they'd be happy to see us," Katherine challenged, still gazing at them.

"But what if they're traveling from a time before Gary and Hodge stole the thirty-six babies, where nobody from the future knows us? What if we create a paradox by talking to them?" Jonah warned.

"Oh, right," Katherine mumbled, slightly embarrassed that Jonah had to correct her. "But what if they're coming from a time after time travel was banned, and something's wrong? What should we do?"

"Nothing. If that's the case, they'll talk to us. Just pretend that we're time natives that can't see them," Jordan suggested.

"That's probably best," Katherine muttered in agreement, obviously disappointed.

"Just walk on by, to the food court," Chip whispered. Jonah couldn't tell if he was talking to everybody or himself, but it didn't matter.

Jonah couldn't help sneaking a glance at them as they walked by. If anybody saw, then they would just think that he was looking at the selection of sodas, right? The man had his back to him, but Jonah could make out several more details about the girl now that he was closer. She looked much younger than he originally thought. She looked more like a teenager than an adult, although he judged that she could have been as old as twenty or twenty-one. Jonah shifted his gaze ahead of him, so that he was staring at the back of Chip's head, which was slightly taller than his.

After they were out of sight of the time travelers, he felt something slam into his shoulder.

"Ow! Why'd you punch me?" he snapped at Jordan, who was glaring at him.

"I saw you staring at that girl! I hope she didn't see you," Jordan said anxiously.

"I don't think she did," Chip replied calmly, glancing behind them. "She's not trying to follow us."

"Good. Now, let's get something to eat," Katherine said, pointing over at the pizza place.

Soon, they were all seated at a table in a secluded portion of the dining area, munching away on their pizza.

"I miss JB," Katherine blurted out randomly, twirling her straw around in her drink. "I wonder how he's doing."

"Me too," Jonah agreed. I think about him almost every day, he added to himself.

JB was a time traveler from the future, the first that they had ever really met. The way that Jonah understood everything, JB was an officer of the Time Police. They all met because JB was the one who was trying to fix time when Gary and Hodge snatched all of those missing children out of history and turned them into babies, then accidentally crash-landed in the early twenty-first century. Of course, Jonah knew JB had worked with each kidnapped child to fix their time period so that they could stay in the twenty-fist century, but Angela, an adult that saw the time crash happen, had told him that Katherine and he were JB's favorite kids.