Opportunity. Check.
Answers. Check.
Address. Check.
And they say destiny doesn’t guide us in the right direction. Yet here it is, placing the right people directly in my path.
I lift a brow. “Did he?”
She nods.
When we reach the morgue, I lower her gently to the floor. I point toward the small service door nearby.
“Do you remember the way out?”
She nods again.
“Do you know where to go?” I ask.
“My house.” Her eyes widened. “I will make myself coffee and a good damn pie.” A faint smile pulls at her lips. “If I die, I die in my own four walls.”
I’m not sure if her house still exists. It’s been eighteen years since 1998—time can erase places as easily as people. But I also know I can’t go with her. I have to return and pretend.
“Go to Ten White Street,” I say. “It’s not far from here. Find Emily Beckett and tell her you know Zayne Mercer. She will help you.” I pause. “A lot can change in eighteen years. Houses collapse. People change. You will need someone if you find everything gone.”
She looks at me closely. “Did he succeed?”
The question tightens my jaw.
I shake my head.
“There is still time,” she says softly, lifting her hand toward my face.
I catch her wrist before she can touch me.
“Time is the one thing I don’t have anymore,” I say. “Go. Now.”
I turn away and push the door open, pointing toward the exit.
Time is running out for me. I don’t have a machine to bring it back, and even if I did, it wouldn’t change anything. Some people can’t be changed. Time can’t be stopped.
The world is already falling apart. People are the ones tearing it down. I am only here to add to the destruction. My life was ruined before I ever had a chance to live it. Time became a leakI tried to patch, to keep it from draining away faster than it already had.
Now all that is left is pretending.
Because I want them all to be part of my show.
Not everyone in this place is crazy.
Some of us are lunatics.
EIGHT
Emily
Istand in a coffee bar near the Halden Institute, staring down at the empty paper from the Plan B pill I swallowed minutes ago. I judge men who think with their cocks, even though my own body was doing the exact same thing.
Emily, you are officially a slut. Congratulations.
