Chapter 41 Mariella
Twelve months later
My limbs ache with fatigue, the muscles trembling for the past three hours.
I draw in a sharp breath of fresh mountain air, laced with pine and snow.
A sharp sting bites at my palm, and my clammy hand unfurls, releasing the plastic corners of the Polaroid digging into my skin.
The only photo remaining from the mass of documents cleared from Silas’s office and ceded to Liam two years ago.
Some would call it fate that this particular photo was missed, wedged at the back of Silas’s filing cabinet between the drawer and its base.
I trace a numb finger over my mother’s serene face.
She sits beside me on a rock wall by the ocean, face turned to the side as if catching the photographer in mid-exposure.
Her top’s risen with the movement, dark ink marking the sliver of exposed skin on her lower back.
An unmistakable tattoo. The Mark of the Time Traveler.
Why do I have no recollection of my mother having a tattoo?
Silas’s messy scrawl dates the picture to three months before she died. In the photo, my mother is healthy. Happy. And the day she was taken away, my young mind struggled to comprehend how someone could deteriorate in such a short period of time. Unless my concept of that time was wrong…
I tuck the Polaroid into my pocket, fingers brushing the small syringe Liam left me two years ago.
In that time, I’ve traveled as much of the world as I could, living every moment as if it was my last. I’ve stood, legs weary, gasping for breath at the top of the Eiffel Tower, screamed until my throat burned as I leaped from a plane in Hawaii, and lost hours partying in Amsterdam, surrounded by laughter and smoke.
I’ve met fascinating people from all walks of life, allowing myself to interact without fear of judgment.
I’ve been set free, and with freedom, I’ve gained clarity.
Throwing away the antidote in my hand will ensure me many things, including a life of safety and normalcy. But I’ve never been normal, and now I don’t want to be.
I don’t want to spend my life wondering what if? What if Neurovida was responsible for my mother’s death and I was too scared to discover why? What if I live my entire life without seeing Liam again? What if I give up the love of my life before he’s ever met me?
Liam said time travel’s a gift, and I won’t throw it away.
He and Rose couldn’t save me, but I am the master of my own destiny, and I will learn how to time travel.
Liam said there was a reason Silas wanted to keep me from Neurovida once he’d interfered with my life.
He was right to call me a threat. One his younger self won’t see coming.
I will uncover the truth behind what happened to my mother.
I will force Matthews to teach me how to change the past, and I will save myself.
I will prevent the nightmare plaguing me since I was a child from becoming my reality and, if the dates in Silas’s office were correct, I have three years to do it.
And if I can’t? I’ll still have three years to fall for Liam all over again, to experience a love so consuming that he was willing to sacrifice his entire life to fight for it.
Snow crunches beneath my boots as I walk through the white-tipped forest, rubbing my hand over the ache beneath my sternum. With each step, the burning sensation fades. I pause before two tall, wrought-iron gates, and close my eyes.
“Let the current carry you,” I say softly, clutching my mother’s necklace between my fingers. An icy chill breaches my thick coat, creeping under my skin and into my muscles, like phantom hands urging me forward. Calling to me. Whispering that this is where I was meant to be.
This is my fate.
Hauling off my coat, I yank the neckline of my top past my bare shoulder, pull the protective plastic cap off the needle, and plunge it deep into my arm. Biting back a cry, I pull the needle from my skin and scan the imposing mansion casting me in shade.
Neurovida.
“I want you to listen to me carefully, Miss Adams,” says the middle-aged woman sitting across the desk from me. She lowers her fountain pen and delicately clasps her hands atop the marble surface, inclining her head to peer at me over her black, rectangular glasses.
She never offered her name. I knew better than to ask.
“The second you walk through that door”—her eyes flicker toward the door at the far side of the room—“you are no longer Mariella Adams. That name does not exist to you. You have no past, no present, and no future. You must pick an alias. No first or last name, no titles. One word.” The woman pauses.
“This is for your safety. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I reply, my voice strong despite my racing heart.
She unclasps her hands and retrieves her pen, head lowered to the papers before her. “As soon as you’ve decided, you can join the others. Do you need some time?”
“No, thank you.” I move toward the door, one hand trembling over the handle, the other clutching the heart-shaped charm on my necklace.
“Well?” the woman asks, looking up from the mass of legal papers I’ve just signed.
I take a deep breath. “It’s Flame,” I say, opening the door and walking straight through it without looking back.