I want to back away, but I'm standing by the bed. There's nowhere to go. "That doesn't mean—"
"I don't believe in coincidence."
His gaze drops to my mouth.
Again.
Second time. I'm counting now.
Just for a second. Just like before, in the car. And just like before, my breath catches, and my heart does something complicated, and I hate—Ihate—that he can see what he does to me.
When his eyes meet mine again, there's something sharp in them. Searching.
"You will stay where I can see you until I understand what you are. Coincidence or conspiracy. I don't yet know which."
"I'm not a conspiracy." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. Small miracle. "I'm a photography assistant from Providence. I don't know how I got here. I don't know why the date on my phone is wrong. I don't know anything."
He tilts his head slightly. Studying me. Like I'm a puzzle he can't solve, and it's making him impatient.
"The date on your phone," he repeats.
I shouldn't have said that. I should have kept my mouth shut, given him nothing, the way I did in the chapel.
But I'm tired. I'm confused. And some reckless part of me wants him to know that I'm just as lost as he thinks I am.
"It says it's three weeks ago," I tell him. "Except I remember those three weeks. I lived them. And now they haven't happened yet."
Something happens to his face.
It's not much. A flicker in those golden eyes. A tightening at the corner of his jaw. If I weren't trained to notice micro-expressions, I might have missed it entirely.
But I am trained. And I don't miss it.
He recognizes what I'm describing. I don't know how, I don't know why, but something in my words has landed. Something has struck a nerve.
For a long moment, he just looks at me. The impatience is gone. In its place is something I can't name—something almost like uncertainty, though that doesn't seem like a word that belongs anywhere near this man.
"Intéressant," he murmurs finally. The word is soft. Almost to himself.
And then, without another word, he turns and walks out.
Not a goodbye. Not an explanation. Just—gone. Like he got more than he came for, and he needs to think.
The door closes behind him with a soft click.
I sink onto the bed, breathing hard, heart pounding against my ribs.
What was that?
What does he know?
And then I do what any rational person would do.
I try the window.
It opens easily. No locks, no bars. Just a three-story drop to the gardens below, with nothing but perfectly manicured hedges to break my fall.
I close the window.
