Transform Me (A "Shatter Me" Trilogy Fanfiction)

FORTY-FIVE: TIME TRAVEL

45: Time Travel

By five o'clock in the evening, we arrive back in Sector 21's prison house. Despite being under a rather sizable layer of metal, I still find myself shivering in the cold. Too bad the special suits aren't equipped with internal heating. Still, the suit is a lot lighter than I anticipated, although it's heavy enough to slow us down a bit.

Thanks to Kenji, we all pass through the prison house unseen as we follow the warden to the hangar. There isn't a single guard inside, so the warden must have cleared them all out before our arrival. There's one jet inside and it's much smaller than the aircraft Jun made. But I can't complain. If nothing else, I'm grateful for it.

"The tank's been filled." The warden informs us. "I've also keyed in the coordinates in advance. You sure you can fly this thing?"

"Thank you, Warden Kishimoto." Warner says. "And, yes. I can manage."

"Alright, then." He nods toward the jet.

One by one, we begin to file into the jet. Kenji is the last to board. I choose a seat next to the window and watch both father and son talk. From inside, I can't hear a word they're saying, but they both look serious. Then Warden Kishimoto suddenly looks right at me and smiles. I duck my head in embarrassment, and his smile turns mischievous as he returns his attention to his son. Kenji starts shaking his head and waving his hands frantically in response to something his father said, and the warden throws his head back and laughs. Kenji really does look a lot like his father.

A few minutes later, Kenji finally joins us and chooses the seat next to me.

"Hey." He greets me.

"What was that about?" I ask him.

"Nothing." He hastily replies as he averts his gaze. "Anyway, Warner's flashing the seatbelt sign, so you better put it on."

"Oh." I look up at the neon sign above me, then down at the leather straps on either side of me. "How do you fasten this thing?"

"Here, let me help you."

He twists over to take both straps in his hands and, in one swift motion, secures the buckle. But he's too close and I can feel his breath on my neck and I can't think. Then all too soon, he pulls away and settles back into his own seat so he could fasten his safety harness.

"This is your pilot speaking." Warner's smooth voice announces itself over the intercom.

I see Juliette roll her eyes, shake her head, and smile.

"Today is July 2nd, Monday, and it is now eighteen hundred hours, Japan Standard Time. Flight destination is Belfast, Northern Ireland. We will be experiencing a shift in time zones as we cross continents. Estimated time arrival is twenty hundred hours, Irish Standard Time, on July 1st, Sunday."

"Janey Mack, this is something else. It's quite like time travel, innit?" Caitlan remarks from her seat. "We're leaving Sector 21 on a Monday at 6:30 in the evening, and we're arriving in Sector 9 on a Sunday at 8:30 in the evening. We're going back in time."

"It does feel like that, doesn't it?" Juliette agrees.

"I don't remember what it was like on our plane ride to Sector 21 all those years ago. I was still a lass who couldn't tell her foot from her hand." Caitlan sighs wistfully as she rubs her hand over her belly.

Her baby bump is showing more prominently now. I remember her mentioning how she was in the middle of her second trimester. She said she's due in October, and her goal was to get Jun back way before then.