The Eleventh Hour #4
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.