“Wait,” she yells. She reaches for Silas, a sudden wave of calm in the room’s pandemonium. Her hand touches the middle of his back. His body tenses, and she closes her eyes for one fleeting second before Parker breaks the group apart, ramming the guard away.
Everything happens at once. I don’t see Silas take the gun, but suddenly it’s aimed at my future self, a dark fury in his gaze, and the gunshot is ringing in my ears. She crumples to the ground, a circle of dark red blood blossoming over her chest.
Parker roars, rushing forward to take her into his arms. “No!” he yells, his voice breaking. “Stay with me.”
Silas gestures to Rose and Parker. “They’re working with Fan,” he says to Nickol.
“Liar,” Rose screams, tears streaming down her snarling face.
There’s no blue left in Silas’s narrowed gaze, as if the pigment has washed away, leaving behind a cold, cloudy gray.
After everything he’s done, deep down a part of me still believed there was good in him. Even when he took away my powers, he did it to protect me.But this?
Tears wet my cheeks, and my heart aches fiercely, as if the dormant chamber reserved for him has been torn from my body. It’s as if I’ve slipped into yet another nightmare, wheremySilas—the first person I trusted after my mother died, whose chest I wept on while divulging my past—turns into something else. Someone else.
Matthews.
My attention snaps to my future self. She’s dying.I’m dying.I need to stop thinking of her as someone else, because it’smylimbs twisted on the floor.Myblood pouring from my body.Mylife about to end.
Parker’s emotions gush through me, adrenaline, terror and distress overwhelming my senses. I’m struggling to focus over the roaring in my head, my racing heart, and the uncontrollable tremor seizing my body.
“You’re a dead man,” Parker growls at Silas, and I feel his raging promise from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. He lowers his head, and warmth spreads through my body.
“He’s trying to travel,” someone yells.
“Stop,” Nickol yells. It’s then I notice the strange-looking gun with a long, narrow barrel in his hand. “You leave this room and you’re as good as dead. We’ll send people after you. You’ll never stop running.”
Parker doesn’t respond. Body shaking and head bowed, energy erupts within his chest, the thrumming power mirrored within my own body. He doesn’t react when Nickol fires his gun, or when a small syringe embeds in his neck, but I flinch as if the needle’s pierced my own skin. Another gunshot rings in my ears, and I’m thrown into my own memories.
The darkness.
My heart struggling to complete its final beats.
The oxygen dwindling in my blood.
This is it. My spirit’s about to leave my body.
I am seconds from death.
I close my eyes, and every single emotion Parker felt in that moment pummels my body, knocking the air from my lungs. Emotions so strong and pure, no amount of training could suppress them. His fear and desperation inundate me, his burning need to protect my future self and his eternal promise to undo what’s happening to her.
To change his past and save her life.
Above all, I feel his blinding, unconditional love for her.For me.And I know without any doubt in my mind that Parker wouldneverdo anything to harm me.
Wet tears spill onto my cheeks. My mind’s in this dim room, but back in Silas’s office, Parker pulls my body toward his, as if he needs to be closer. As if my touch might ease some of his debilitating grief.
Our chests press together, warm cedar and freshly cut grass igniting my senses as he draws my face toward his. “I’ll save you,” he says into the shell of my ear, voice trembling with emotion. “And I’ll kill Matthews for what he did to you.” And through the death, the darkness, and the despair, his lips find mine, a silent vow promising revenge.
My skin buzzes, the electricity pulsing through me, far stronger than when Parker brought me into his past. He opens his mouth, tongue tangling with mine in a desperate, fervent kiss. Parker’s energy continues to course through my body, accumulating until the pressure in the rooms shifts. His grasp on my arms tightens, but he breaks away from me, drawing in a ragged breath… and everything else—Rose, Silas, his cottage—is gone.
36Mariella
I’m standing inside a small cabin with wooden floorboards. “Where are we?” I ask.
“Ski cabin in Wyoming,” he says over the gentle sound of burning logs crackling in the fireplace.
The subtle, smoky scent blends with the aroma of fresh pine. I tear my gaze from the dancing flames.
