Chapter 38 Mariella
I stare at the mass of documents lining the walls of Silas’s office without seeing anything at all.
My mind keeps jumping from those beautiful, rare moments alone with Liam in the cabin, to Rose holding Silas at knifepoint, and the unsolved puzzle that was my friendship with Silas.
It all makes sense now. Silas had a plan from the beginning: get close enough to manipulate me and ensure I stayed at uni.
Push me to socialize with Anna and build a life here, outside of Neurovida’s walls.
My pills were another piece of that puzzle.
Stop my sub-t to ensure I never glimpsed my future or discovered anything about time travel.
If what Rose said is correct, the pills were also a clever backup, should I still choose to go to Neurovida.
Medicine to strip away any power I might possess to actually be recruited.
But Parker had stepped into my world, and Silas’s carefully constructed scheme had come crashing down.
My brain a tumble of thoughts, I untack the hundreds of photos and documents from the office walls.
“I’ll come back for you.”
When? The back of my throat burns. Liam and Rose won’t kill Silas, will they?
I finish clearing the walls and begin emptying the desk and filing cabinet, shoving papers into a small moving box I find in Silas’s attic.
It feels wrong keeping them, as if I’m prying into a time not yet my own.
I’m carrying the box to the living room when Liam calls my name.
My eyes momentarily flutter closed at the sound of my name on his lips.
He’s appeared in the hallway behind me, and it’s as if no time’s passed. “Liam.”
A slow grin creeps across his face, and he walks toward me, hands tucked into his pockets. “It’s only been a day, but I’ve missed you like it’s been years.”
I walk into him, relaxing my head in the crook of his neck. His arms wrap around me, and I breathe in his scent.
“What did you do to Silas?” I ask, and Liam’s arms stiffen.
“Nothing yet. We’re still questioning him. He hasn’t said much since we left here, but he’ll crack with time,” he says, an iciness in his voice I’m unaccustomed to.
“I packed up everything in his office,” I say, gesturing to the moving box. “Maybe there are clues in there that will help you?” My voice lowers to a whisper. “You won’t kill him, will you?”
Liam’s silence turns my blood cold, and I pull away from him. “Killing him won’t bring back the lost members of Alpha, but it will make you as bad as he is.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he says.
I take in his trembling body. His pale face. “You’re scared,” I say.
Liam’s gaze rushes back and forth between my eyes.
“I’m terrified,” he whispers, tilting my chin upward.
“I keep thinking unless we get answers out of Matthews, I’ll never see you again.
” He presses his forehead against mine. “And I’m afraid of the things I’ll do to get those answers. I can’t lose you again.”
“Then take me back with you,” I beg, resting my hands against his chest. “Silas will talk to me. I know he will.”
He shakes his head, as if compelling his fear away, and places his hands over mine.
“Ella, I came back to check you’re okay.
And to let you know I’ll never stop fighting for you.
And I know I’ve said goodbye about a hundred times now, but this is it for a while.
At least for me. Until Rose and I figure everything out. Please try to understand.”
Salty tears wet my lips. I want to tell him to stay.
To run away with me so we can have the time together we deserve.
To get to know each other without breaking oaths and the pressure of Neurovida.
But that means asking him to give up on his future and saving his friends. To give up on Rose. To give up on me.
I take a breath and stare into his golden eyes. “I understand, but it doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier.”
“It’s not really goodbye. Not forever.” He lifts his hand to brush a stray lock of hair from my face.
“Matthews has the answers, I just need to get them. And if I can’t, I’ll figure it out myself.
Now I know changing the past is possible…
” He smiles at me and a wide, mirroring grin pulls at my lips.
“The next time I see you, I’ll tell you how happy we are together in the future. ”
My chest swells, yet tears fall down my cheeks.
I need to believe that time will come. That Liam will be in my future.
That he will save my life, and we’ll be together.
And when the day he speaks of comes, I’ll go to Professor McGregor and ask for the antidote.
But until then, I’ll keep my lost powers a secret.
I won’t add another burden to Liam’s shoulders.
I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his.
He wraps his arms around me, lifting me off my feet, and his tongue parts my lips in slow, worshiping strokes that make my heart stammer.
Fire erupts under my skin. Will any length of time with him satisfy the burning ache his touch provokes?
The sparkle in his eyes tells me I’ll soon have a lifetime to test my theory.
My feet touch the ground, but Liam’s arms linger around my waist, as if he can’t quite let go. A mischievous grin plays at his lips. “There’s no coming back from you, Ella. You’re an addiction. The guy you’ll meet at Neurovida… has no idea what’s coming.”
“I want to know everything about us, and Neurovida… and time travel.”
Liam laughs. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve told you there’s no fun in living if you know how everything’s going to turn out.”
“If you say so,” I murmur.
He presses a kiss to my forehead. “Goodbye, Ella.”
“Goodbye,” I whisper, and in an instant, he’s gone, the moving box filled with documents disappearing with him.
I move toward the office, but another noise echoes in the corridor. Smiling wildly and heart racing, I whip around. “I wasn’t expecting—”
The words disintegrate on my tongue. I stand mute, staring at the man walking toward me. A man who, seconds ago, was at least five years younger. Subtle lines crowd the outer corners of his eyes, yet somehow he’s more handsome than ever.
“Liam.” I reach out and brush my fingers along his bearded cheek. “I don’t understand. How long has it been?”
He grasps my hand long enough to draw it away from his face. “The last time you saw me, I was six years younger.”
“Six years? I don’t—” A heaviness settles in my stomach. Six years and he hasn’t come back.
“The next time I see you, I’ll tell you how happy we are together in the future.”
The day never came. He and Rose didn’t discover how to change my future. They couldn’t stop my death. It’s written all over him. He can’t save my life, and we won’t be together. He’s here to say goodbye.
For a fleeting moment, I’m falling, the world spinning around me as my body hurtles toward the ground with nothing to slow my descent. The resignation on Liam’s face confirms it, but I still ask, “You didn’t figure out how to save me, did you?”
Liam’s face twists, as if the words he speaks are agonizing. “I swear to you, Rose and I have tried. I’ve spent every waking minute since we left in the past, but we haven’t been able to change anything.”
“And Silas, he didn’t—He said he wanted to save me.” And despite everything he’s done, I believed him. Fool.
“He was an exceptional liar. If he wanted to save you, he could go back and stop it from happening, just like he could erase turning Neurovida against us,” Liam says.
“But if he already knows I won’t survive, then why bother entering my past?” Why push me to let him in and take away my powers?
“We only know he came to this time looking for us. We think he knew I’d try to find you, so he needed a reason to stay close to you.”
An uncomfortable tightness forms in my chest as I scan Silas’s neat cottage.
The dark leather sofa where I opened up to him about my past. His white tiled kitchen where he cooked us dinner, his gray-blue eyes tracking me as I studied at his dining table.
Whenever our gazes locked, the tension around his eyes would ease, as if I were his salvation in a life of damnation.
All a lie. A trick. To get close to me, to find Liam and Rose.
“I didn’t think… Was it all fake?”
“Yes. Silas wasn’t even his real name.”
The pain in my chest is now a vicious stabbing, right beneath my sternum. Because of Silas, I’ll never master time travel. I’ll never see my mother again. My lungs are incompetent, each inhale strained. I’ll never meet Liam.
I want to scream. Break down. Do anything to release the unbearable pain tearing at my insides, but I swallow the cry in my throat and hold back the tears burning my eyes.
Liam’s spent the past six years trying to save me, and the agony of defeat is written all over his face.
For him, I need to be strong. I raise my chin. “Did you kill him?”
“Yes,” he says without hesitation, his voice unrecognizably cold.
I should feel satisfaction, but the pain in my heart worsens, threatening to tear me apart. Silent tears stream down my cheeks.
Liam runs a hand through his hair, eyes glazed over as if his mind is in another place.
“We couldn’t let him go. Not with the power he had to change the past. He could come back here and kill us all.
” He shakes off his stupor, his golden gaze returning to mine.
“Ella, I came back for two reasons. I hate to ask you for anything again but—”
“I want to help,” I say.
Liam nods. “Get rid of everything in here. Just in case he’s hidden information that will lead anyone to us.”
“I will. And the second thing?”
Liam is silent, his shoulders slumping as he pulls something from his pocket, his knuckles white.
I stare at the syringe in his hand, and my heart drops. “You know?”