“What you’ve done in the past is finished. We can have a future together now. This can be a clean slate for both of us.”
He shook his head. “I wish that was true.”
“Why are you leaving?” My throat felt thick.
“Because a bullet will find me tonight according to the Books. It’s fate. And if I stay here, it puts you in danger as well. It puts this safe house in danger and now I finally see how important it is.”
I didn’t know what to say to him. My heart ached at the thought that I was going to lose him when I’d only just found him. “What happened to your mother?”
Adam’s eyebrows went up. “My mother?”
“Yes. When I first saw you, you were sad. She’d died.”
He crossed his arms. “That was a long time ago.”
“Maybe for you.”
He gave me a sad smile. “She died of cancer.”
“And the man who took you away?”
“That was my uncle.”
“You said he wasn’t.”
“I . . .” He frowned, as if trying to remember. “I call him my uncle, but we’re not related by blood. He was a scientist – still is. He’s the head of the time travel division I work for. He raised me, then recruited me, thought I’d be good at being an auditor. He was right. I am damn good at it. But it always felt wrong to me. Now I know itiswrong.”
“But you’re still going out there tonight and put yourself in danger for something you think is wrong?”
“Just because I think it’s wrong doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Fate exists. And it can be foreseen. Gloria worked with my uncle for years before she got out only a short time ago.”
“Why can’t you do the same?”
“Because just as there was a bus destined to kill you, there is a bullet destined to kill me. And I can’t be here when it finds me.” He stroked my face as if trying to memorize me. “Be safe, Sophie.”
“Adam . . .”
“And just for the record, I never thought your paintings were dirty. I thought they were beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Just like you.”
He kissed me. But before I could draw him closer he pulled away, pushed the door open and left the safe house.
Fate.
It was fate that I’d spoken to that little boy. Fate that I’d given him my drawing. Fate that that bus was supposed to kill me. Fate that Adam would save me.
Was it fate that I’d fall in love with him?
It had to be. What I felt was as real as anything I’d ever experienced.
I wiped away the tear sliding down my cheek and turned to Gloria who stood by the floor-to-ceiling window looking down at the city below.
“So,” I said shakily. “Did you see that coming too?”
“I did,” she replied gravely, and then turned to look at me. “It was fate that Adam would leave here in search of his own death tonight.”
I was surprised. “It was?”
She nodded. “Yes. Just as it’s fate that you will go after him and save him from his own pig-headed stupidity.”
