Again, But Better

28. More Than You Bargained For
It’s been an hour. We’re still here. We’ve been sitting in
silence for fifty-four minutes when Pilot decides it’s time to
break it.
“Good thing we didn’t finish our drinks, huh?” he opens.
My lips twitch. I look up from the floor and narrow my
eyes.
He studies me for a moment before continuing, “You think
you still feel whatever you felt before, even now?”
I blow out a breath. “Remember how we talked about what
three places we would go back in time to if we could?”
“Vaguely.” He’s thoughtful for a moment. “We were going
to hit a Beatles concert?”
“Yeah, and the Constitutional Convention, but I never
came up with a third one.” I fixate my gaze a few inches to the
right of Pilot’s head. “I think my third would be January
2011.”
He stares, expression too neutral to read.
I stare back. “If you could go back and do London all over
again, knowing everything you know now, would you do it?”
He looks up at the ceiling for a few beats before dropping
his eyes to meet my gaze. “Maybe.”
Another jolt rocks the elevator and it shifts violently to the
right.
“
Holy!
” I slide across the floor toward Pilot.

---

“Shit,” he breathes. Loud creaking noises cut at our ears.
My arms clutch at the black railing running along the walls.
The elevator’s creaking. 
What is creaking? Why is it creaking?
There’s a bang. I close my eyes and scream.

---

1. Helpless
I wait for impact. When fifteen seconds pass and it doesn’t
come, I hesitantly unscrunch my eyes.
I’m sitting at a table in a light blue kitchen with a laptop in
front of me. 
What the—?
I jerk out of the seat, disoriented. The
chair flips backward and clangs against the ground. I jump,
whirling around.
No.
I was in an elevator. Where’s the elevator? The
elevator was creaking.
My breaths come fast and shallow. I glance back at the
computer on the table. On the screen, Pages is open to … a
blog post about London? 
Not possible.
I slam the laptop shut. There’s a white 
Lost
Dharma
Initiative MacBook decal on the back.
“Gah!” I jump away from it.
My legs tangle with the fallen chair, and in seconds I’m
slamming up against the floor. Pain lances from my ass up my
back. That’s going to bruise.
That’s my old computer up on the table. That computer’s
dead. Sawyer died at the end of 2011. I had to get a new one—
Sayid.
“What the fuck?” I yell to no one. I smack my cheeks and
shake my head, trying to clear the room from my vision.
Nothing happens. I scramble off the ground and spread my
arms out in front of me, Chris Pratt raptor-style, and slowly

---

back away from the laptop. My eyes fall to the white chair
lying on the floor. My heart pounds.
“No,” I insist. A scream crawls up my throat, so I let it out.
It bounces around the room. Echoes around my head. I drop to
the floor in a squat.
“This can’t be real this can’t be real this can’t be real this
can’t be real. Inhale, exhale.” I inhale and exhale. I focus on
my feet. Black boots.
I was … I was wearing those little heels. I yelp again,
leaping up off the floor. Horror washes through me. I’m also
wearing jeans. Jeans! “Did someone change me?”
What happened? We were in the elevator. I was in the
elevator with Pilot. In New York. 
Did I pass out?
Did
someone kidnap me and change my clothes and fly me to
London? Where’d they get my old computer?