Chapter 33 Mariella
I unlock Silas’s front door and bolt down the hallway to his living area.
“Silas? Are you here?” I storm toward his office and yank the locked door handle.
“Silas,” I yell at the wooden door. I race into his bedroom and open the top drawer of his nightstand, rifling through the mound of half-empty pill packets to find the brass key resting at the bottom.
The office door unlocks with a satisfying pop, and I hurtle into the dark room, tripping on a stray shoe. Asynchronous ticking fills my ears, surrounding me from all directions. I flick on the light and breathe in Silas’s fresh, minty scent.
There’s a single bed pushed against the far wall, a large desk, and a metal, industrial-looking filing cabinet against another wall. Numerous clocks are positioned around the room, a mix of digital and analogue, all displaying the exact time, day, month and year.
But it’s not the clocks spiking my adrenaline, or the collage of photographs, documents and profile shots neatly lining the walls by the desk.
It’s not the maps, or the dates and times labeled on every document.
And it’s not the two large profile shots of Parker and Rose staring back at me from the center of the wall.
It’s the far wall above the single bed that has me speechless, backing away on shaking legs. Because this wall also has photos, but only of one person.
Me.
Every aspect of my life’s mapped out, documented in an immaculate timeline extending well past the current year.
Heart racing, I study the pictures of myself in my school uniform before we ever met, working in the library, and walking between classes with Anna.
There are copies of my school and college schedules and my sketches displayed among childhood photos, each marked with handwritten dates and times.
I retreat further, and my back presses against something warm and solid. My scream hitches in my throat.
“Silas,” I gasp, whipping to face him. There’s only one way he could’ve been in my sub-t, watching over my interaction with my mother all those years ago. “You’re a time traveler.”
He closes the door, trapping me inside. “Yes,” he murmurs. He steps forward, his gray-blue gaze locking me in place. “How long have you been in contact with Parker?”
Heat surges through my chest. “You knew about my paranoia of being followed. You let me believe I was crazy. That it was all in my head.” I swallow the cry rising in my throat, looking over the wall displaying my life and intimate memories as though I’m at the center of a crime investigation.
I’m reminded of all the times I passed lone figures on campus, feeling like I was being watched.
“This whole time, it was you. Spying on me, before we even met.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t spying on you. I was looking for him.” He pulls something from the top drawer of the filing cabinet and places it on the desk. “When did you meet him?”
I stare down at the paper, my drawing of Parker from so many months ago, torn from my sketchbook. A wave of disgust rolls through me. “You went through our apartment. Why did you leave my sketchbook in Anna’s closet?”
“I’m sorry. Anna came home while I was there. I was forced to leave it.”
“Why were you even there? What else are you hiding from me?” I suck in a breath, the blood draining from my face. “Did you start the fire at my house?”
A muscle tenses in his jaw, and his eyes darken to a murky gray, like the surface of the ocean on a stormy day. “How could you think that? I pulled you from the fire.” He drags a hand down his face. “Where’s Parker, Mariella? What’s he told you?”
“Nothing,” I snap.
His lips part. “I can’t believe after everything, you don’t trust me.”
A bitter laugh bursts from me. “I did trust you. It was you who refused to trust me.” And now I know why. “You were lying to me this whole time.”
He gestures to the wall of photos. “To stop you from finding out about any of this. To keep you safe. And I’ve spent the last twelve months looking for Parker and Rose so I can help them.”
I straighten my spine. “Help them with what?”
His cold gaze gives nothing away. “I think you know.”
I shake my head, my lips pressed together.
He steps back and lifts the bottom of his shirt.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He pulls down his sweats and there, on his muscular right quad, etched into his gleaming skin, is a tattoo. The same tattoo Parker and Rose have. My sketch, the Mark of the Time Traveler.
“You know what this tattoo is. What it means,” he says, pulling his pants back up.
I slump onto the office chair. Silas went to Neurovida.
“We were recruits together,” he says. “I came back here to keep you away from Neurovida. Everything I did was to stop you discovering anything about it.”
“Why? What happens to me if I go there?”
He swallows, brows drawn as he spits out, “If you go to Neurovida, you’ll die. Did Parker tell you that?”
His body is trembling, every visible muscle taut.
I stare into those gray-blue eyes, dark shadows swirling like smoke.
How many times did I fail to imitate them in my sketchbook?
I can finally put my finger on the emotion hovering in the background, an emotion he’s so carefully masked from me until now.
Fear.
Silas is afraid for me.
“You’re lying,” I whisper, but as I say the words, an icy chill curls down my spine.
Silas rummages through the drawers of the filing cabinet. He pulls out another picture and slams it onto the desk before me.
He turns away from me, leaving me to stare at the photo of myself. My stomach hardens. My skin is sickly pale, and dried blood coats my face. Bile rises in my throat at my lifeless form, eyelids half open and mouth agape.
He’s telling the truth, displayed blatantly in front of me. The nightmare plaguing me since I was seven years old brought to life.
A sour taste fills my mouth. Every time Parker mentioned me at Neurovida, he always spoke in the past tense. Parker knew. I get to my feet and stumble away from the desk.
Neurovida’s the place I’ll die.
“This is what happens if you join Neurovida,” Silas says, his voice breaking.
Tears well in my eyes. Why didn’t Parker warn me?
My back hits the wall filled with photos of Parker and Rose.
I turn and mindlessly take it in. A damaged Polaroid sits in the middle of the wall, so small I might have walked by it.
Six people huddle together, wearing the same black smartwatch on their left wrists.
Parker grins in the middle, his arm wrapped around Rose’s shoulders as she pushes him away.
Silas and I are on Parker’s other side, flanked by two people I don’t recognize.
The Alphas.
Beaming in triumph. Some of us holding up clothing to reveal dark tattoos surrounded by red skin. Even Rose is smiling.
I turn back to Silas, sitting on the bed and watching me with a clenched jaw. When he speaks, his voice is soft and smooth. “Mariella, I have a plan in place to prevent you from ever going to Neurovida.” He rests his hand on his knee, a plastic cylinder in his open palm.
“What is that?” I ask, edging backward.
He turns the needle over, and his defeated gaze rises to me. “Your chance at a regular life. An opportunity to finish your psychology degree. No more dreams. No more symptoms or pills. This is safety. Normalcy. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”
I stare at the syringe in his hand, held out to me like an offering. He wants to remove my powers. “I don’t want that.”
“You’re building a life here. Don’t throw it away.” He looks down at the syringe in his hand. “This medicine is a cure. If you don’t take it, you’ll be recruited to Neurovida, and you’ll die. I’ve tried to stop it so many times.” He stands and steps toward me. “This is the only way.”
Keeping my powers doesn’t guarantee I’ll go to Neurovida, but taking the drug in his hand would ensure I’ll never see my mother again. Or Parker. My heart shudders.
Silas’s large form looms over me, like a dark thundercloud blocking the sun. I can’t think. I can’t breathe.
“I need some time to think.”
His control snaps. “What’s there to think about?
” he yells, a vein pulsing in his neck. “It’s this or your death, Mariella.
” He’s upon me with lightning speed, forcing the glass cylinder into my hand.
When his fingers brush my skin he tenses, yanking his hand away.
He pulls an empty pill packet from his pocket, the muscles in his jaw twitching.
He told me he took medication for stress headaches, but now I reflect on his behavior since we met. He’s become more unhinged and irritable. His body’s shaking. One wrong move and his guarded facade will crumble. Just like—
Rose.
I’m reminded of her bag, overflowing with medication, just like his bedside drawer. “Staying in the wrong time’s making you sick,” I whisper, twisting the tie at the front of my dress around my fingers.
“I’m fine.” His eyes stray to the closed office door and he brushes his hand over his sternum. “I just need to take something for this headache. I’ll be back.” He strides from the room and closes the door behind him.
I turn back to the faded Polaroid of the Neurovida recruits and locate Silas, the only recruit not grinning.
He hasn’t aged a day. He has the same striking features—defined jaw, straight nose, strong cheekbones—but less tension lines his face.
His eyes are sparkling, his forehead smooth, partly covered by a tousled lock of dark hair that’s fallen forward.
He’s so beautiful it almost hurts to look at him.
I’m scanning the wall for more photos of him when he returns, eyes distant and posture rigid. When did he lose that magnetic shine to his eyes? How startling to compare his now cold and serious demeanor with the exuberance radiating from his picture.
“What name did you go by?” I ask.
He shakes his head, as if his mind is elsewhere. “What?”
“The name you picked for yourself when you were recruited.”
“Matthews,” he says, his voice thick.
“We were betrayed by a man named Matthews… Don’t trust him.
” Parker’s words echo through my mind. I lean toward the Polaroid.
My future self’s head is turned to the side, her arm slung around Silas’s broad shoulders.
I squint at the hand hanging off his shoulder and the subtle cross of her index and middle fingers. My heart rate kicks up.
“This is how we can tell there are people around us who are dangerous.”
My body turns numb. I need to leave.
Now.
“Silas, I—”
His strong arms clamp around me, forcing the wind from my lungs and locking me firmly against his chest.
“I didn’t want it to come to this,” he says, and I struggle against him, but it’s useless.
I can’t escape his hold.
I can’t stop him taking the syringe from my hand, or plunging the needle deep into my biceps.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles against my ear.