“I’m done fucking around,” I mutter, and I turn to Ella. “Do you have any final questions you want to ask him?”
She frowns, looking to Parker. “What do you mean, final?”
I pull out my pocketknife and press the blade into Matthews’ neck.
“Rose,” Ella screams, rushing toward us. Parker holds her back, and she folds into his arms, burying her head against his chest.
“Don’t fuck with me, Matthews,” I say through gritted teeth. “How do you change the past?”
“I’m the only one who can do it,” he says. “Just like Parker can travel other people without touching them, and you can go back further than your own life.”
“If you believe you’re the only one who can do it, then you won’t mind telling mehow.” I lean toward him, his blood beading at the tip of my knife. “Tell me before I slit your throat.”
Matthews’ gray-blue eyes stare into mine, his jaw set. His intentions are clear—he won’t tell us a thing. Not withoutmotivation.
I glance at Parker. We prepared for this, stealing enough medicine to drug Matthews for days. I know where Parker stands. We need answers, and to save Ella’s life, Bandit’s life, Axis’s life, I’ll gladly take Matthews’. My eyes dart from Parker to Ella, and Parker nods. Removing Ella from his arms, he steps toward me, his body vibrating.
“Say goodbye, Ella,” he says.
Her eyes widen. “Stop,” she begs, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please don’t do this.”
Parker places one hand on my shoulder and the other on Matthews’, his influence gushing through us both.
“I’m sorry,” Parker says to Ella, his voice pained. “I need to do this to save you.” He checks his watch and lowers his head, and the room begins to shift.
Ella rushes forward, fisting the material at the back of Parker’s shirt. “Liam, please.”
A sudden coldness hits me at my core.Liam.In all the time we’ve spent together, Parker’s never disclosed this information to me. Yet he’s told Ella after spending a collection of hours with her. My stomach turns at the intimacy of it. At the way he’s staring at her, as if she holds the power to build or break him.
Pull it together.I turn to Parker, ignoring the crushing in my chest. “Let’s go.”
Parker nods, but his amber eyes are focused solely on Ella. “I’ll come back for you,” he says in a low voice, and he travels us from the room.
38Mariella
I stare at the mass of documents lining the walls of Silas’s office without seeing anything at all. My mind keeps jumping from those beautiful, rare moments alone with Liam in the cabin, to Rose holding Silas at knifepoint, and the unsolved puzzle that was my friendship with Silas. It all makes sense now. Silas had a plan from the beginning: get close enough to manipulate me and ensure I stayed at uni. Push me to socialize with Anna and build a life here, outside of Neurovida’s walls. My pills were another piece of that puzzle. Stop my sub-t to ensure I never glimpsed my future or discovered anything about time travel. If what Rose said is correct, the pills were also a clever backup, should I still choose to go to Neurovida. Medicine to strip away any power I might possess to actually be recruited. But Parker had stepped into my world, and Silas’s carefully constructed scheme had come crashing down. My brain a tumble of thoughts, I untack the hundreds of photos and documents from the office walls.
“I’ll come back for you.”
When?The back of my throat burns. Liam and Rose won’t kill Silas, will they?
I finish clearing the walls and begin emptying the desk and filing cabinet, shoving papers into a small moving box I findin Silas’s attic. It feels wrong keeping them, as if I’m prying into a time not yet my own. I’m carrying the box to the living room when Liam calls my name. My eyes momentarily flutter closed at the sound of my name on his lips.
He’s appeared in the hallway behind me, and it’s as if no time’s passed. “Liam.”
A slow grin creeps across his face, and he walks toward me, hands tucked into his pockets. “It’s only been a day, but I’ve missed you like it’s been years.”
I walk into him, relaxing my head in the crook of his neck. His arms wrap around me, and I breathe in his scent.
“What did you do to Silas?” I ask, and Liam’s arms stiffen.
“Nothing yet. We’re still questioning him. He hasn’t said much since we left here, but he’ll crack with time,” he says, an iciness in his voice I’m unaccustomed to.
“I packed up everything in his office,” I say, gesturing to the moving box. “Maybe there are clues in there that will help you?” My voice lowers to a whisper. “You won’t kill him, will you?”
Liam’s silence turns my blood cold, and I pull away from him. “Killing him won’t bring back the lost members of Alpha, but it will make you as bad as he is.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he says.
