The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance

Michelle Maddox The Eleventh Hour

I saw the little boy standing on the corner crying his eyes out. Lugging my heavy portfolio, I went directly to him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I crouched down in front of him.

“My mommy’s gone,” he sobbed.

“I’ll help you find her.”

“You will?”

I nodded. “I promise.”

He looked at me warily through damp, but clear, blue eyes the exact same colour of the sky today. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Sophie Shaw. What’s your name?”

“I’m Adam.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Adam.”

He sniffed and looked at my portfolio. “What’s that?”

“This is where I keep my art.”

“Your art?”

I unzipped the top and reached in to grab a small self-portrait I’d done on a scrap piece of paper that morning while looking in the mirror. Practice makes perfect after all. I had a hard time with eyes, getting that spark of life to come into them, but in the simple five-minute pencil sketch I felt like I’d done a decent enough job.

“See?” I said. “That’s supposed to be me.”

He took the sketch from me and looked at it with wide eyes and smiled. “Cool.”

With a review like that, I really wished the kid was an art buyer. Since he didn’t look more than seven years old, I could only hope he’d grow up to be one. A rich one.

“I’m trying to be an artist,” I told him. The more I spoke, the more his mood seemed to brighten. “I have a show next week at a gallery right around the corner from here. My first one. Now, enough about me. Where do you live?”

He looked around. “I don’t know.”

I stood up and offered him my hand. “Let’s go find your mom.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised by this and hope filled his blue eyes.

I nodded. “Really.”

“That will be difficult since his mother is dead,” a deep voice said. I turned to see a man standing next to us. If I were to draw his eyes, there wouldn’t be a whole lot of friendliness there.

My stomach sank. “Oh, I. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I thought he was just lost.”

“He’s my nephew and he lives with me now.” Something that vaguely resembled a smile crept over the man’s face. He reached out his hand. “Come, Adam.”

But Adam didn’t let go of my hand, instead he held it tighter. My heart broke for the little boy, crying on the sidewalk because his mommy was gone. And she wasn’t coming back no matter how hard we would have searched for her.

Since I’d lost my mother when I was about his age, I could definitely sympathize.

“Be brave for me, Adam. Can you do that?” I touched his face, wiping a tear away with my thumb before brushing the jet-black hair back from his forehead. “You’re going to be OK, I know it.”

“I’ll be brave.” Adam inhaled, and it sounded shaky. He still clutched my sketch in his left hand. “Th-thanks, Sophie.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re nice.”

I smiled at him. “Your uncle will look after you now.”

He shook his head as he finally let go of my hand. “He’s not really my uncle.”

I frowned. “But I thought he said—”

“You should mind your own business. It’ll get you in trouble one day.” The man pulled Adam away from me, his large hand clamped on the boy’s small shoulder.

I looked over my shoulder to see if there was someone around to help. A police officer would come in real handy right about now. “If you’re not his uncle, then who—”

When I turned back, they were both gone.

Feeling confused and shaken I walked up and down the street for ten minutes but there was no sign of them.

It was as though they’d vanished into thin air.

The bus nearly killed me.

My heart rate went a million miles a minute as I stood shaking on the sidewalk. Somebody had yanked me back just in time and saved me from my monstrous stupidity. I’d been glancing down at my BlackBerry to check an email that had just come in and wandered on to the crosswalk before the light changed.

I was also still distracted about what happened last week with the little boy. I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him, seeing his sorrow-filled little face whenever I closed my eyes, and worried about where he’d gone and if he was OK. I’d lost a lot of sleep that week over Adam.

However, just because that man wasn’t really his uncle by blood, it didn’t mean he wasn’t an official caregiver. Adam would be OK. I hoped like hell I was right about that.

Looked like I really should have been more worried about myself, though. One wrong step — one moment frozen in time — put me inches away from becoming a splattered piece of modern art on the pavement.

“You didn’t even see the person who saved your life?” my best friend Anna asked that night at the gallery.

“Nope. There were a bunch of people there witnessing me wandering aimlessly about in traffic like an escaped mental patient, but my guardian angel never revealed him-or herself.”

“You almost died.”

“Yeah.” It was still a stomach-churning thought.

“Dead on arrival. Like, you wouldn’t have even had a chance.”

“Thanks for rubbing it in. Really helpful. And by the way it was an email from you I was reading at the time, smarty-pants.”

“Don’t even try to pin the blame on me, Sophie.” Anna grinned, obviously not taking my brush with death even remotely seriously.

It was so great to have friends who cared.

She snagged two glasses of sparkling wine off a passing tray and handed one to me. “To your first official show. May Sophie Shaw and her fabulous talent with oils become the next big thing.”

I clinked glasses with her. “I’ll drink to that.”

“You know what’s funny?”

“Please tell. I could use a laugh.”

“If you’d died today, every painting here probably would have gone way up in value.”

I drained my glass in one big gulp. “The sad thing is you’re probably right. Only I wouldn’t have been here to enjoy spending money frivolously for the first time in my life.”

She grabbed me another full glass. “Then I think we should toast to a long life, to huge success, big bucks and to the guardian angel who kept you from dying before you’ve had the chance to really live.”

I looked at her. “Is that a crack at how boring my life is?”

She gave me innocent eyes. “I have no idea what you mean. Me, making a crack about your wildly exciting and romance-filled life?”

“I’m focused on my career right now. I’ll find a man when the time is right.”

“Sure you will.” She nodded as if to humour me. “OK, so let’s drink to the life of an eccentric twenty-something artist who hasn’t dated anybody in as long as I’ve ever known her. One who creates gorgeous paintings of romance and love and desperate, aching need even though she chooses not to partake in such unsavoury endeavours herself. Until the time is right, of course.”

“‘Eccentric’,” I repeated. “Sounds way better than pathetic, doesn’t it? I’ll definitely drink to being eccentric.”

“You would.” Anna rolled her eyes and laughed. “Cheers, Sophie.”

Anna left the gallery early, but I stayed till the bitter end. Three paintings sold, although they were some of the cheaper ones. Still, a minor victory and one that would pay the majority of my rent for the next three months.

I’d had too much wine and tottered unsteadily on my heels as I made my way to the street to hail a cab. That was when somebody grabbed me from behind.

A scream tore from my throat but was muffled by a foul-smelling cloth clamped down over my mouth. My attacker held me there prone until my head went cloudy from whatever chemical was on the cloth and I fell head first into darkness.

“Wake up.”

It was a command not a request. And when I ignored it since I was only semi-conscious, I felt the stinging pain as a slap resounded across my face. My eyes shot open and I gasped for breath.

I found myself seated in a hard chair and my hands bound behind me. The room was dark but there was a light shining in my face — a flashlight, I thought.

“What’s going on?” My mouth felt dry and the words rasped out.

“That’s a very good question,” a man said. I couldn’t see him clearly apart from a shadowy outline. “And something we’re trying to figure out as well.”

I pulled against my restraints but the rope bit into my wrists. “Who are you?”

“We’re the ones asking the questions.”

Panic gripped my chest. I’d been kidnapped. It was the sort of thing that happened all the time, but I never thought it would happen to me. Which was probably why I’d felt confident leaving the gallery after midnight by myself — something I’d done dozens of times before.

“Sophie Shaw,” he said. “Born December 17, 1983. Raised in Albany and moved to Manhattan to attend the New York Academy of Art. Never married, no dependants. Both parents deceased. Is that right?”

My mouth moved but no sound came out. How did they know me? What did they want?

He smacked me again and my head rang from the pain.

“Is that right?” he asked again.

“Y-yes, that’s right.”

“Dammit, Harris,” another voice said sharply. “There’s no fucking need to abuse her, is there?”

“Just let me do my job.” I heard paper shifting together. “Date of death is listed as September 15, 2009.”

I stopped breathing for a moment. That was today’s date.

“What?” I managed. “Please, I don’t know what you’re looking for, I just want to go home.”

“That’s not possible, I’m afraid,” he said. “Tell me about the bus, Sophie.”

“Th-The bus?”

“The one that was supposed to end your life today.”

“I. I don’t know.”

“What happened?”

“I almost got hit but I didn’t. It was close.”

“Yes, so I’m gathering. Not close enough, unfortunately.” He sighed and it sounded annoyed. “You are causing me a great deal of paperwork, do you know that?”

I felt utterly confused and totally afraid. “What do you want from me?”

“Answers only. According to my papers you’re supposed to be dead. That bus, the one you avoided by the skin of your teeth? It was supposed to kill you. You were fated to die today. So what I want to know is why you’re not lying in a morgue right now.”

How could he say something so horrible with such a cool, detached tone? “Fated?”

“Yes.”

“I. I don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do. I’ll let my associate explain the rest to you since he seems to have a problem with my bedside manner right now. He’s more than welcome to take over.”

Another man shifted partially into focus behind the light, but he was mostly a shadowy outline. I could see broad shoulders and the edge of a strong, stubbled jawline as he turned to look at the other man. A glint of light brushed against his cheekbones and brow.

“It’s law that we explain it to you first,” he said. His voice was much more pleasant than the first man — less detached and cold. Unfortunately, a nice voice didn’t change my situation one little bit or lessen my fear.

“Explain what?”

“The Books of Fate. They’re. transcribed daily by seers. The names of people who die as well as those who are born. And they are rarely wrong —”

“They’re never wrong,” the other man said.

“No, but. but sometimes there’s a glitch and someone fated to die doesn’t. This poses a threat to adversely affect the future. It’s our job to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

I licked my dry lips. “You sound completely crazy, you know that?”

“Turn the light on, Harris,” he said. “She’s terrified. There’s no reason for us to scare her more right now.”

Harris snorted. “Terrific. Our best agent’s going soft on me over a random blonde?”

“No,” he said immediately. “Just do it OK?”

“Won’t change anything.”

“Just fucking do it.”

“Whoa, OK.” A chuckle. Then a switch was flicked and light flooded the room.

I squinted and looked around. I had no idea where we were: a generic room of some kind that only held the chair I sat in and the two men in front of me. Both were dressed in black. One was middle-aged, blond, with weary-looking grey eyes. The other was younger, dark-haired with light blue eyes. Both were tall, muscular and looked very dangerous.

It was all I could do to keep my teeth from chattering at the sight of them as they looked down at me tied to the chair.

It was strange, but the dark-haired one looked vaguely familiar. Where the hell had I seen him before?

“I don’t have any money,” I said. “So this is a waste of your time if that’s what you’re looking for.”

He shook his head. “We don’t want money.”

“What we want,” Harris, the blond one, said, “is to get this finished so I can get home. I have vacation time coming to me.”

The dark-haired man scowled at him. “Have a little respect, would you?”

Harris held up his hands. “What is with you tonight, Adam? You’re acting bizarre. This is just another job.”

That’s who he reminded me of. The little boy from last week. Adam was his name too. Same black hair, same blue eyes. However, this guy was a whole lot more than seven years old — by at least twenty years.

“What happened with the bus?” Harris asked. “How’d you miss getting creamed?”

“Somebody grabbed me. Pushed me out of the way.”

“Really?” His eyebrows went up. “Well, that’s unlikely.”

I scowled at him. “Unlikely or not, that’s what happened. But what difference does it make? And these Books of Fate. I don’t understand why it makes any damn difference. I almost got hit but I didn’t. So what?”

“Because you being alive right now when your name is on the list to die today is wrong. It has the potential to screw up the future.”

“Says who?”

“Says us,” Harris said, then he grinned. “Because that’s where we’re from.”

I gaped at him. “Sure you are.”

“I know it’s hard for you to believe, Sophie, but it’s true,” Adam said. “We are from the future. We’re part of a government organization that regulates fate, according to the Books, and controls any potential fluctuations that affect the future. It’s an important job and one we must take very seriously.”

Something slid behind his gaze as he said it despite his confident words. Regret? Why would he feel regret about this?

Then it dawned on me what these two crazy men were getting at.

“So because the bus didn’t kill me,” I began, my voice barely audible, “because I didn’t die on the day your so-called Books of Fate said I would, you’ve been sent here to finish the job?”

“Holy shit,” Harris said, amused. “And they say blondes are dumb. This one’s a regular brainiac. Impressive.”

I was shaking now, harder than before. “You’re going to kill me?”

“That’s the general idea,” Harris confirmed. “I’ll make it quick, though. I promise.”

“But. ” I swallowed hard. “But why would you even bother to explain this to me? Why wouldn’t you just kill me outside the gallery?”

“Because it’s policy to explain what’s going on first,” Adam said. “It’s an important part of the process — for you to understand why we have to do this.”

“I still don’t understand. This is wrong and you have to know that.” I shook my head and felt hot tears slide down my cheeks. I felt utterly helpless tied to the chair. These men planned to kill me and I couldn’t even fight for my life.

“What I want to know is who yanked you out of that bus’s path this morning.” Harris pulled a gun out of a shoulder holster under his black coat. “It’s a fucking mystery to me. It’s as though they knew what was going to happen.”

Adam looked at him. “You think it was one of us? Somebody with access to the Books of Fate? And they might have travelled back in time to save her?”

I couldn’t keep my eyes off that shiny silver gun Harris now held with ease — the one he was going to end my life with. Fix the mistake. Erase the budding artist before she’d even had a chance to live just because her name was listed in a book somewhere in the future.

It didn’t matter if I believed them or not. My belief in time travel or fate didn’t change what was going to happen here one little bit.

“Yeah,” Harris said, grinning. “But that would be a really stupid move, wouldn’t it? And what would the motivation be?”

“Don’t know.” Adam shook his head. He’d barely taken his eyes off me since the lights came on. “Maybe somebody who’s started to doubt our missions. Somebody wondering if we’re sent out as an easy answer to a difficult problem. Somebody who has begun to question exactly what fate is and why we need to kill innocent people just because we’re told to. Somebody who never questioned these things until he saw the name Sophie Shaw in the Books and it jarred him out of his obedient daze enough that he travelled back twenty years through time to pull her out of the way of that bus.”

My eyes widened a little during his insightful speech.

Harris turned to look at Adam, his shaggy eyebrows held high. “That’s one hell of a hypothesis. But whoever that agent might be, he’d be in deep shit if he was ever caught. You know the penalty for fate interference, right?”

Adam’s jaw set. “Of course I do. I’ve seen others executed because of it.”

“Besides, it doesn’t make a difference anyhow. We’re here to put things back the way they’re supposed to be. So if you’re finished gawking at our pretty little target, that’s exactly what I’m going to do right now.”

I clenched my teeth as he pointed the gun at my head and pulled the trigger.

But Adam kicked Harris’s arm just in time and the bullet embedded itself in the wall behind my right shoulder rather than in my forehead.

Harris turned to him with a frown. “What the hell do you think you’re—”

Adam swung the heavy flashlight, hitting Harris across the side of his head. The blond man crumpled to the floor unconscious before Adam’s blue-eyed gaze returned to me.

“OK,” he said, “so I’m thinking that’s why my name was added to the book today as well. Jesus. I just signed my own death warrant.”

It sounded as if he was talking more to himself than to me.

“What?” I managed.

Adam’s eyes flicked back to his partner. “I honestly didn’t plan to do that. I thought I might be able to talk him out of it, but I should have known better. He’s stubborn.” He smiled a little, but it looked shaky. “Then again, so am I.”

“What is going on?”

“That is a very good question, but one I can’t answer right now.” Adam threw the flashlight to the ground and then began to undo my bindings. The ropes fell away from my sore wrists. “There are other agents stationed outside. When Harris and I don’t report in very soon, they’re going to come looking for us. We have to get out of here.”

He held his hand out to me, but I didn’t take it.

“Come on,” he said. “There’s no time.”

I shook my head.

His dark brows drew together. “I know you don’t trust me, but you have to. I’m not going to hurt you. I swear I’ll protect you.”

“Was it you?” I asked. “You’re the one who pulled me away from the bus today, aren’t you?”

His chest moved under his black coat to show he was breathing hard. “That was me.”

“And everything you just said to Harris—”

“Was how I really feel. Yeah. Now come on, or saving your ass twice today isn’t going to mean a damn thing.”

I took his hand and he practically yanked me out of the chair to my feet, then roughly pulled me behind him as he kicked open the door. We hurried down a hallway leading to a staircase.

“Who are you?” I asked him.

“Name’s Adam. Adam Rizer.”

“And you’re from the future.”

He looked at me sideways. “I am.”

“And you just knocked your friend unconscious in order to save my life.”

“Looks like.” He shook his head. “Although, Harris wasn’t exactly somebody I considered a friend. When you’re in my line of work, friends can be a liability.”

“Being a coldblooded assassin must be hard work.”

I tried to keep up with him but he moved very fast. I didn’t have much of a choice, though. He had my hand clutched in his so tightly that if I fell, he’d still be dragging me along behind him.

“We’re called auditors, not assassins.”

“Of course you are. Such a bland government title for something so horrible.”

He eyed me. “Yeah, well, it’s not exactly the same as painting pretty pictures of people having sex, but it pays the bills.”

I glared at him. “Is that what you think I do? Paint dirty pictures?”

“Of course not. They’re supposed to represent true love, right?” He said it sarcastically. “The fact that the people are naked just helps raise the collectible value.”

Despite my gratitude for his saving my life, I didn’t like his tone. It was hard enough to get respect in the art world without somebody else labelling my work pornography. Although, I suppose without that notorious reputation, I wouldn’t have gotten half as much press as I’d received since getting out of school.

We headed down another floor and I tried not to twist my ankle as we quickly rounded each corner. “I don’t care what you think.”

“If it’s any consolation, the work of Sophie Shaw will be very sought after a couple decades from now. I saw one recently for nearly a hundred grand.”

A hundred grand? I remembered what Anna said to me earlier that evening. That if I was dead, my paintings would be worth way more. Looked like she was right.

“Adam, you have to—”

“Shh,” he commanded. We’d reached the bottom of the stairs of whatever building we were in. He had a gun drawn and, with his back flat against the wall, he peered out of a window to the side of a set of doors.

“They’re out front,” he said. “This is the back exit. I think we have the chance—”

“Adam!” an angry voice bellowed from above us. “Where the hell are you?”

It was Harris. He was awake and he sounded mad as hell. The sound of hard-soled shoes thundering down the stairs echoed around us. Without waiting another second, Adam pushed the door open with his shoulder and we burst outside.

“Stop!” Harris shouted.

I heard a gunshot. Then another.

“Watch out,” Adam snapped, wrapping his arm around me to pull me out of the way. Part of the door frame splintered off as the bullets made contact.

Relying on instinct only, I ran with Adam away from the building and down an alleyway. Several alleyways, in fact, until I was hopelessly lost. It was dark and cold and my feet were burning from running in my heels. I was exhausted and scared and shaking like a leaf.

“Please, stop,” I begged. “I can’t go any further.”

“No, you’re right.” Adam looked around, before putting his gun away. “This is a good place.”

“A good place for what? I need to go home. I need. I need to go to the police.”

He shook his head. “They can’t help you.”

“What do you mean they can’t help me?”

“They’re in on this. They know. Maybe not all of them. But the right people know about auditors from the future. It’s fully condoned. They understand why the future must be kept pure. If you go to them, they’ll hand you right over to Harris and the others with no questions asked. They get the list of any problem cases just like we do.”

“The present and the future working together for a common goal.”

“Pretty much. The only thing separating us is twenty years.”

“What about the past — all the horrible things that happened then? Why didn’t you kill a few badasses — dictators, serial killers — who hurt a lot of people?”

“Because it wasn’t in the Books, of course,” Adam replied simply, his jaw tight. “We only take care of the glitches. Otherwise, the past and the present stand as they are. As they were.”

“So you’d kill me but you wouldn’t go back and kill Hitler because that wasn’t your assignment.”

“We have to operate within a two decade time frame, but even if we could go back further, you’re right. We wouldn’t have killed him without a direct order like yours. But I didn’t kill you, did I?”

My head ached even attempting to wrap my brain around everything, but I tried to think. “I need to go home. Grab a few things. Then I can go into hiding for a while. Maybe I’ll go to Mexico or Brazil or—”

“No, that doesn’t work. They’ll find you.”

“But I have to talk to Anna. I have friends who’ll wonder where I am.”

Adam’s expression was tense. “It’s over, Sophie. Your life. The life you knew. You can’t ever go back to it. Not if you want to live another day.”

I just stared at him. “But I have to.”

“No, you don’t. The life you knew ended the moment that bus was supposed to hit you.” He rubbed his forehead. “Fuck. Maybe I shouldn’t have done anything. Maybe I should have let fate run its course. Dammit, I had to do something, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t think through all the repercussions.” His gaze was intense. He closed the distance between us and grabbed me by my shoulders. “But I just couldn’t let you die. Not like that.”

“Why not?” I struggled to breathe as the warmth of his touch sank into me. Despite my fear and this bizarre and dangerous situation, I found myself oddly attracted to this strange man who’d now saved my life twice. Being pressed up close against him didn’t help. “Maybe you should have. You don’t know me. Why would you screw your own life up to save somebody you don’t even know?”

“But I do know you.” Adam looked away and raked a hand through his black hair, his strained expression lit only by the moonlight.

“How?”

Adam reached into the inner chest pocket of his long black coat and pulled out a piece of yellowing folded paper. He handed it to me.

I took it with trembling hands and unfolded it. It was the sketch — the self portrait I’d done last week. The one the little boy had looked at and never returned to me before he’d disappeared. Only now it looked old and faded. The pencil marks were practically too light to see.

“Sorry for the shabby shape it’s in,” he said, a sardonic curl to his lips. “That’s what twenty years’ll do. And I must admit, some of them have been a bit cruel. But I still have it. I’ve kept it as safe as I could.”

I looked up at him. “How. How is this possible?”

“What part? How I’ve stared at that drawing of you for twenty years, imagining who you were, what you were like, what you wanted? How I’ve dreamed about you countless times?” He laughed, but it was humourless. “Funny how the mind can play tricks on you. One blonde lady who was nice to me all those years ago and I’ve never been able to forget her beautiful face. Funny how when nobody’s ever been nice to you, you remember the one who was — even if it was only for a minute. And a little boy’s gratitude can change to something else as he gets older. Something that makes him willing to fuck up his own life when hers is in danger.”

The realization hit me like a tidal wave.

It was him.

This handsome, dangerous man with the haunted blue eyes who stood before me in a dark alleyway — the one I couldn’t help but be attracted to even in the midst of running for my very life — he was the little boy from last week on the corner who was missing his dead mother.

“You. ” But I couldn’t figure out what to say. I was utterly stunned.

Adam paced to the other side of the alley and then back. “I looked you up ten years ago, thinking stupidly that I’d find you and you’d fall madly in love with an eighteen-year-old kid like me,” he said, with a wry twist of his lips. “But. that’s how I found out you were already gone. That you’d died the week after I met you and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it because there were no details about the death of Sophie Shaw, the famous erotic artist. But when I found your name in the Books, I knew. I just knew I had to do something about that. And here we are.”

I chewed my bottom lip. “My paintings aren’t erotic.”

“Doesn’t bother you that you were dead, just that I’m labelling your art erotic.” He stared at me for a moment before he laughed. “This is not something you want to argue with me about. I know your work. I’ve studied every piece for hours. It’s incredibly erotic.”

My face warmed and I looked down at the sketch again. “I can’t believe this.”

“Believe it.” He drew closer to me until I could feel the warmth from his body shielding me from the cold night.

“So you did all this, you put your own life at risk, because—”

Adam blinked. “Because I’m in love with you.”

My mouth dropped open.

He grimaced and looked away. “I shouldn’t have said that. This is complicated enough without —”

I pulled him closer to me and kissed him, stroking my fingers through his black hair. He resisted for a moment before kissing me back, hard and deep and filled with need. He pulled me closer to him so my breasts flattened against his chest and I felt his arousal press against me. My hands slid down the sides of his face as his tongue slid between my lips to taste me deeper.

A sudden and uncontrollable wave of desire crashed over me. I’d never wanted anyone so much in my entire life. Or so fast. I’d only just met him.

Even though he’d known me for twenty years.

I’d waited so long, painted so many pictures of love and passion, but it had only been a pale representation, a guess of what love truly was. I’d never actually felt anything that powerful for anyone before. Not until now.

Adam was the man I’d been waiting my whole life to find — I knew he was.

Little did I know how I’d end up finding him.

“We need to go,” he whispered against my lips. “It’s not safe here.”

“Go where?”

He pulled the sleeve of his coat up so I could see he wore a strange watch with a large face on his left wrist. He fiddled with it for a moment, carefully turning a gear on the side of it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It shouldn’t be like this. You shouldn’t have to leave your life behind, but there’s no other way to keep you safe.”

I thought of the friends I wouldn’t see again. They’d be worried and confused about what happened to me. But Adam was right. I couldn’t go back. My life here was over.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said softly. “Where are we going?”

He brought his arm around my waist. “To the future. Twenty years from now. My time. I know a safe house there for those who want to escape from the Books of Fate. You won’t be the first who’s taken refuge there.”

The future.

I nodded. My heart ached at the thought of never seeing Anna or my other friends again, but I knew he was right. “OK.”

He seemed surprised I was so agreeable. “You trust me?”

“I do.”

He nodded. “Good.”

I folded the sketch and tucked it back in his pocket.

“It’s worth money, you know,” he said with a grin. “If anyone knew I had a Sophie Shaw original they’d be very jealous.”

“Feel free to sell it.”

“That’s not going to happen.” He looked at his watch, fiddling a little more with it.

“No?” Despite everything, a smile tugged at my lips. “Can’t bear to part with it?”

“That, of course.” Adam shook his head and met my gaze. “But also because I found my name in the Books this morning as well as yours.”

My smile fell away. “But, wait a minute. What does that mean?”

Adam touched my face, stroking his warm fingers over my cheek and bottom lip. “It means I’m going to die very soon — killed by a bullet to my heart, apparently. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

I heard a sound, a whirring noise, and it filled my ears as white light filled my eyes. Before I could say anything else, demand more answers from him, the world I’d known all my life disappeared forever.

“This is Gloria,” Adam said when a door creaked open on the fifteenth floor of a condo on the Lower East Side.

We’d arrived in the future — as crazy as that sounded — an hour ago. Adam kept checking his watch for some sort of indication that his friends had also come forward with us. He seemed nervous about that, but not because he feared his own impending death. He was so focused on my safety it was driving me seriously crazy.

He also wouldn’t discuss it any more. I asked him questions about how the auditors found people and if there was any way to talk to them rationally, but he just changed the subject. It was very frustrating.

“As I live and breathe.” Gloria’s gaze scanned the length of him. She had dark hair and dark skin and ruby red lips that curled with amusement. “Adam Rizer. Never thought I’d see you here.”

“Didn’t you know I was aware of your secret little operation?”

“Of course, and I knew you wouldn’t tell anyone. But I thought you were a company man. Never go against your uncle for anything.” Her eyes flicked to me. “Ah, I think it’s becoming clearer to me why you’d risk so much tonight.”

“This is Sophie Shaw,” Adam said, averting his gaze from mine.

“The artist,” Gloria replied.

“That’s the one. She’s going to stay here for a while. I’m hoping you can help her get adjusted to everything.”

“It would be my honour. Please, come in.” Gloria opened the door wider for us to enter.

“Thanks,” I said. I had Adam’s hand clutched in mine and I wasn’t nearly ready to let him go yet. After everything I’d been through tonight, the feel of his skin against mine was the only thing keeping me remotely sane.

The apartment was much larger than I’d expected. In fact, it seemed to be the entire floor plus, according to the staircase in front of me, at least the floor above us as well. A safe house in the sky.

“So, breaking all the rules now, are you, Adam?” Gloria asked with a smile.

“Seem to be.”

“I told you she’d be a keeper.”

That caught my interest. “You told him that?”

“I did. When he was younger Adam showed me the sketch of you he always keeps in his pocket. I told him one day you would be together romantically. That you’d know he was the one for you the moment you saw him.”

Adam studied the floor. “It wasn’t like that, Gloria.”

“No,” I agreed. “The moment I first saw him, his buddy, Harris, was slapping me around.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Oh my.”

“It took me another twenty minutes before I knew Adam was the one for me,” I finished, then smiled at her.

Gloria laughed. “See? Like I always say, fate’s a pain in the butt but sometimes it’s not so bad.”

“How did you know?” I asked her. “About me and Adam?”

“Because I’m a seer,” she said. “Or, at least I used to be. But the auditors. they twist what we tell them. They change things to make it pure and perfect. Life isn’t perfect — it changes and undulates as we grow and move and breathe. There is not only one destiny for us all to hold true to. Fate can shift depending on our decisions. Believing differently will result in the necessity for places like this —” she waved a hand at her surroundings “— where those who have been rejected from their time, whose lives are in danger from those who wish to control our destinies, can come and know they still have the chance at a real future.”

“Thank you for letting me stay here.”

“My pleasure.”

“I must leave,” Adam said suddenly. “I’ve done all I can. I hope you can forgive me, Sophie. I never meant to ruin your life.”

He turned and walked to the door. I ran after him and grabbed the sleeve of his coat, forcing him to look at me.

“You didn’t,” I said, fighting against the lump in my throat. “You saved my life.”

“You didn’t have to say that before. About knowing I was the one for you.”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“It’s too fast for you. I mean, for me it’s been twenty years, but for you —”

“For me it’s been twenty-five years.” I placed my palms flat against the firm planes of his chest. “Because I know you’re the man I’ve waited my entire life to find.”

“I’m an assassin.”

“Still?”

“No, but—”

“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 it is wrong.”

“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.”

I just stood there and gaped at her.

She put a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to stare at me or are you going to go after him? Like I said, fate changes. Just because he knows how he will die, doesn’t mean it can’t still change. But it won’t unless you get your ass in gear and move.”

Gloria was right. Of course she was. Adam hadn’t accepted that I’d die from getting hit by the bus. He’d changed my fate. And I could change fate for him as well.

I turned away from her and something caught my eye. A painting on her wall. A painting I’d done of two lovers only a couple of weeks ago after a vivid dream I’d had.

I’d called it Destiny Awaits.

“You’re an excellent artist,” Gloria said. “I paid seventy-five grand for that little piece. It’s filled with the fire and passion I want to see from you right now.”

“Thanks, Gloria.”

“You’re welcome. Now move it. There’s no time to waste.”

The seer gave damn good advice.

Without another word spoken I ran from the apartment, headed down the elevator and emerged on to the sidewalk out front. I couldn’t see Adam anywhere.

Fate.

If I was meant to stop this, I’d know what direction to go in. I’d pick one and it would lead me to him. Hesitating only a moment longer, I turned left and hurried along the sidewalk. After a minute, I took off my heels, threw them to the side and ran along in my bare feet until I finally heard something.

“Stupid,” a voice said. “You are so fucking stupid, Adam. For a woman? You’d ruin your entire life for some meaningless woman?”

“Just shoot me and get it over with, Harris,” Adam replied. “I know you want to.”

“Your uncle would be disappointed in you. Always so perfect in his eyes.”

“What the hell do you care?”

“What do I care? That nepotism earned you the perks I should be getting. It’s not fair.”

I flattened my back against the side of the building and sneaked a peek into the alleyway.

“Tell me where she is,” Harris said.

“Where who is?”

“Your little artist bitch from the past. Despite our quarrel right now, this can still be fixed. I just need to put a bullet between her eyes and everything’s the way it should be.”

“And if I don’t tell you a damn thing?”

“Then that’s going to be a problem.”

“Did you look in the Books beyond Sophie’s listing today?” Adam asked. “Did you look at the Book for here? Right now, twenty years later to the day from when she was supposed to die?”

“Why would I bother with that?” Harris asked.

“Because,” I said, stepping out from the shadows, “it has your name listed.”

He shifted the gun to point it in my direction.

Adam turned to stare at me with shock. Did he really think I was going to stay out of this just because he’d planted me in that safe house in the sky like Rapunzel?

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“And yet here I am. The walking dead.”

“I like that you’ve finally accepted your fate,” Harris said. “Now come closer so we can finish this.”

“No.” Adam pulled out his own gun and pointed it at Harris. “Let’s not.”

“So I shoot her and you shoot me?” Harris asked. “Is that how this is going to play out?”

“Not exactly what I’d had in mind,” Adam said. “So I warn you not to even think about pulling that trigger.”

Harris didn’t flinch. “The thing is, I don’t believe her. My name wasn’t in the Book. Not a chance.”

“But it was,” Adam said evenly. “It was right under mine.”

That surprised Harris. His eyes widened and he swung the gun back around towards Adam as if feeling threatened for the first time that night. On bare feet, and by instinct alone, I ran. A split second after Adam had fired his gun, I threw all my weight at him to push him out of the line of fire.

Adam’s bullet hit Harris in the chest.

Harris’s bullet ripped into Adam’s shoulder.

Harris dropped his gun, touched his chest in shock, and fell forwards. His eyes open and unblinking.

I fell to the ground next to Adam. He wrapped his good arm around my chest and pulled me back behind some trash cans.

He swore, grimacing in pain. “Sophie, what have you done?”

I checked him for more serious injury, but there was none. “A bullet in the shoulder can’t be pleasant,” I said, “and you’re bleeding like crazy, but it didn’t hit your heart.’’

“What the hell did you think you were doing coming here and putting yourself at risk like that?”

“Saving your life,” I replied. “Giving fate the finger. Losing my really expensive — and now apparently vintage — shoes. Not necessarily in that order.”

“So that’s all it takes to change fate?”

“I don’t know, I’m kind of new at this sort of thing. Was Harris’s name in the Book? Because I was totally bluffing.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he said. “I was bluffing too.”

“Great minds think alike. But he’s dead?”

“Pretty sure. I’m a really good shot.”

“Bragger.” I almost smiled but I wasn’t nearly ready to feel relieved yet. “But the fact that somebody not fated to die tonight ended up dead — that’s probably a good indication that we changed things, right?”

He pointed at his shoulder wound. “I got shot. Just not in the heart.”

“Serves you right for taking off on me like that.”

He looked at me incredulously. “Why would you follow me and put yourself at risk after you were safe with Gloria?”

I looked at him sternly. “Do you know how hard it is to find a decent boyfriend in New York City? It was hard enough in 2009, let alone 2029. A girl’s got to fight for what she wants, you know.”

He smiled but it was edged in pain. “And what you want is me?”

I stroked the dark hair off his forehead. “I’m thinking I just might.”

Adam looked worried. “They’ll be after me now. Just like they’ll be after you. My uncle won’t make an exception for me. I broke the rules in a big way.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’ll be watching out for each other. We’ll both stay at Gloria’s for a while until we figure out what to do next.”

Adam kissed me, but he looked very serious afterwards. He held my face gently between his hands.

“We may have changed the future by both of us staying alive tonight. Forever.”

I smiled at him, then brushed my lips against his. “I’m kind of counting on it,” I said.