City of Love (Hidden Cities #1)
1. CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1
T he ballpoint pen was a bully. And it was going to get her fired.
“Lexi.” Robert Cohen, the Cohen of Cohen repeatedly falling asleep on the job. Human resources even hinted at substance abuse, being careful not to put that particular concern into writing, though she knew they believed it to be the real issue. Veiled offers for rehab were thrown around, her severance check printed out on the spot. All in exchange, of course, for her signature promising not to sue them for any conceivable reason. Legal and tidy and fast. Within the hour Lexi was clearing out her cubicle, another job having bit the dust.
At least they hadn’t called 911, she thought as she packed up her University of Pennsylvania Alumni coffee mug, her Dr. Who mouse pad, and her just-in-case-of-revolution Guy Fawkes mask buried in her bottom desk drawer.
That call had been placed once when she was in college. As bad luck would have it, the visions came twice in her Abnormal Psych class, and she mistakenly trusted her professor with the truth of her precognitive abilities. Deciding she was delusional, he used his influence to initiate a three-day psych observation. Lexi’s visions always showed her moments that were destined to happen at some point in her future and, ironically in this case, the visions she’d been having were of the hospitalization itself—which she still thought was a bit of a mind fuck.
In truth, she’d been thankful for the hospitalization, because the moment she was admitted to the ward those visions had ceased, the actual event having finally come to pass. That was how it always worked—the visions would not stop until the act took place in real time. Then she might get a blessed break from them for a few weeks, months, or even a year if she was lucky.
Since that experience, however, she’d learned it was wiser, and easier, to let people think she was simply a slacker. Even a reputation as a fuck-up was preferable to that of whacko.
Or freak.
Her desk almost cleared now, Lexi reached to pack a delicate enameled clock her parents had brought back from a trip to Italy, its analog hands reminding her of a simpler, more elegant time. She looked at the Roman numerals on the clock face and—
—she was looking at her wrist. Some kind of clunky digital watch was strapped to it. Concern crawled up her spine as she noted the LED numbers on the face were counting down. She was running out of time, but… time for what?
The enameled clock was before her again, solid in her hand.
The images were coming fast now. Really fast. And the more frequent the images, the more imminent the future event.
Twin drumbeats of fear and curiosity settled into her chest.
Lexi grabbed her box of belongings, threw her purse over her shoulder, and rushed out of the building into the bright spring light, onto Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. She glanced down at her foot as she stepped off the last stair from the building’s exit and—
—her foot was on a cobblestone street, shiny and even, not buckled and blackened like they’d all become in the old city from a century of vehicle traffic they’d never been built for.
What the...
She scanned left and right to get her bearings, but the street she knew like the back of her hand was gone. Dry cleaners and pizza shops had been replaced by original colonial homes. Street vendors lined the sidewalks dressed in odd period costume, almost Victorian in style, yet somehow more modern, with women in leggings or pants below their corset tops. Their carts overflowed with breads, flowers, and oddly printed pamphlets and newspapers. She turned her head at the sound of hooves on cobblestones, stepping back onto the curb and just missing a collision with a horse-drawn carriage.
As she gasped, confused, someone bumped into her and—
—apologized as he passed her in his Armani business suit, making his way back into the law offices she’d just exited, requisite Starbucks coffee in hand.
Lexi found herself unsettled and lightheaded, the images never quite this rapid-fire and dizzying before. Struggling to hold onto the box with one hand, she raised the other to hail a ride and make her way back to her small apartment across town.
As she eased into the back seat of the car, a familiar resignation settled in her gut, forcing the air out of her lungs in a deep sigh. She wasn’t scared exactly; she’d been down this road many times before. There was always another job, another blind date, another attempt at normalcy. But her inability to control the waking dreams forced her to live in a constant state of reaction and largely unsuccessful attempts at avoiding her fate.
Like a leaf blown by the wind of her foresight, she ricocheted through life, wanting mainly to get through the visions as quickly and safely as possible.
And this current batch needed to stop. Soon. She’d been having them for a couple months now, but they were accelerating, and they were insistent. Not to mention confusing as hell. Lexi couldn’t begin to imagine what these strange images were related to or in what possible manner they would play out. All she knew was that the impact of the sight on her life was becoming more and more devastating.
She had to find a way to take charge of her precognition. Because as it stood now, at twenty-five years old, her future already looked pretty bleak, and frankly, she was freaking tired of feeling so helpless and out of control. She knew she could be stronger and smarter than that. She simply needed to find the right… tools.
As the cab sat in traffic, Lexi looked down at the final paycheck clutched in her hand and gave herself permission to cry. Just until the cab got to the apartment. Then she’d buck up and get on with things. Like she always did.
Tears landed hotly on her bottom lashes. She leaned her head back against the seat and—
—His face was right in front of hers again, the unknown man in her visions. His intense gray-green eyes mere inches from her own and looking at her with such concern. He reached a hand to her cheek, caressing her with his thumb. “It’ll be okay, Lex, I promise,” he said, though in her vision she had no idea what he was referring to.
He pulled her closer and leaned in, his lips moving softly along her jaw line, the barest whisper of a touch. She tipped her head back as he slowly worked his way down her neck, his lips tasting her skin, his hands playing in her hair, his touch reassuring her soul.
“It has to be,” he whispered.