Then I sprint directly into it.
I’m saturated in white, the only sound my quickened breath. The light bounces backward, and it feels like my stomach is being crushed from the inside out.
I must be losing it. Because what I’m seeing can’t be real.
It can’t be Silas standing in the corner of the room.
33Mariella
I unlock Silas’s front door and bolt down the hallway to his living area. “Silas? Are you here?” I storm toward his office and yank the locked door handle. “Silas,” I yell at the wooden door. I race into his bedroom and open the top drawer of his nightstand, rifling through the mound of half-empty pill packets to find the brass key resting at the bottom.
The office door unlocks with a satisfyingpop, and I hurtle into the dark room, tripping on a stray shoe. Asynchronous ticking fills my ears, surrounding me from all directions. I flick on the light and breathe in Silas’s fresh, minty scent.
There’s a single bed pushed against the far wall, a large desk, and a metal, industrial-looking filing cabinet against another wall. Numerous clocks are positioned around the room, a mix of digital and analogue, all displaying the exact time, day, month and year.
But it’s not the clocks spiking my adrenaline, or the collage of photographs, documents and profile shots neatly lining the walls by the desk. It’s not the maps, or the dates and times labeled on every document. And it’s not the two large profile shots of Parker and Rose staring back at me from the center of the wall.
It’s the far wall above the single bed that has me speechless, backing away on shaking legs. Because this wall also has photos, but only of one person.
Me.
Every aspect of my life’s mapped out, documented in an immaculate timeline extending well past the current year. Heart racing, I study the pictures of myself in my school uniform before we ever met, working in the library, and walking between classes with Anna. There are copies of my school and college schedules and my sketches displayed among childhood photos, each marked with handwritten dates and times.
I retreat further, and my back presses against something warm and solid. My scream hitches in my throat.
“Silas,” I gasp, whipping to face him. There’s only one way he could’ve been in my sub-t, watching over my interaction with my mother all those years ago. “You’re a time traveler.”
He closes the door, trapping me inside. “Yes,” he murmurs. He steps forward, his gray-blue gaze locking me in place. “How long have you been in contact with Parker?”
Heat surges through my chest. “You knew about my paranoia of being followed. You let me believe I was crazy. That it was all in my head.” I swallow the cry rising in my throat, looking over the wall displaying my life and intimate memories as though I’m at the center of a crime investigation. I’m reminded of all the times I passed lone figures on campus, feeling like I was being watched. “This whole time, it was you. Spying on me, before we even met.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t spying on you. I was looking forhim.” He pulls something from the top drawer of the filing cabinet and places it on the desk. “When did you meet him?”
I stare down at the paper, my drawing of Parker from so many months ago, torn from my sketchbook. A wave of disgust rolls through me. “You went through our apartment. Why did you leave my sketchbook in Anna’s closet?”
“I’m sorry. Anna came home while I was there. I was forced to leave it.”
“Why were you even there? What else are you hiding from me?” I suck in a breath, the blood draining from my face. “Did you start the fire at my house?”
A muscle tenses in his jaw, and his eyes darken to a murky gray, like the surface of the ocean on a stormy day. “How could you think that? I pulled youfromthe fire.” He drags a hand down his face. “Where’s Parker, Mariella? What’s he told you?”
“Nothing,” I snap.
His lips part. “I can’t believe after everything, you don’t trust me.”
A bitter laugh bursts from me. “Ididtrust you. It was you who refused to trust me.”And now I know why.“You were lying to me this whole time.”
He gestures to the wall of photos. “To stop you from finding out about any of this. To keep you safe. And I’ve spent the last twelve months looking for Parker and Rose so I can help them.”
I straighten my spine. “Help them with what?”
His cold gaze gives nothing away. “I think you know.”
I shake my head, my lips pressed together.
He steps back and lifts the bottom of his shirt.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
