Ten minutes ago, we were fine, laughing. Now I was a damsel in distress. What happened?
My eyes shifted to Simone’s now broken body. She just laid there, staring at me with her eyes wide, but empty. We had always had issues. But I never wished her dead. I thought of her fiancé; she had been all alone for so long. She had been so excited to get that giant rock on her finger.
It was her fault. She attacked first. She lied first. It wasn’t Theseus’s fault. I should have stepped in. I knew something was wrong. I could have stepped in.
I could have prevented this.
The moment I thought it, the moment I blinked, and opened my eyes again…everything in the gallery, the paintings, the witches and vampires, everything disappeared, and I was within the four reflective walls of the elevator again.
“Main floor.” The automatic voice spoke as the main level doors opened. Eyes wide, I stared at the back of his dark hair.
“I do not know the answer to the questions yet,” he repeated just like last time, with the same coldness and the same damn grip. “Nevertheless, should they try to hurt you again, I will kill them all, without mercy.”
“Nevertheless, should they try to hurt you again kill them all, without mercy,” I said with him very softly.
“Stay close behind me.”
“Stay close behind me.” Again, I spoke with him, noticing he turned back, looking over his shoulder with confusion written over all over his face.
“You can read my mind?” he asked and quickly, nearly smashing the button in, I closed the elevator door, and I stood in front of him.
“No. You’ve already said this, Theseus. We already had this conversation,” I replied, unable to understand. “We just walked out there and fought the witches, and now we’re back. What did you do? Is that your gift?”
He shook his head slowly. “No, it is not.”
“Then how? How this possible?” asked a vampire to the other vampire in an elevator surrounded by witches, I thought. Remembering I was now swimming in the realm of the impossible.
“Was it you?” he questioned surprised.
“Me?” That was a possibility I wasn’t ready to face.
Chapter 10
“Explain it to me again, slowly, step by step. What happened?” he asked, leaning against the elevator doors. He had hit the stop button, trapping us inside. “When we stepped outside, what did they say?”
“You spoke first,” I muttered, putting my hands to my head as I paced back and forth. “You said, I know you are there.”
“And then?”
“And then,” I shook my head. “Simone said, are you leaving already, Mr. de Apollo?”
“Where was she standing when she said it? How many people were standing with her?”
I growled in frustration. “Can we go back to the part where you said this was my gift?”
He glanced around the elevator. “You want to try again?”
“No!” I lifted my hands, almost wanting to strangle him for being so damn calm. I was tired of calm. I needed him to be just as freaked out as I was. “I want to understand why it happened.”
“Because it is your—”
“Please don’t say gift,” I snapped, pacing back to the other end of the elevator. “I didn’t have a gift two days ago. I was just a normal restorationist, not a time reverser.”
“Do you think you can go forward, too?” he muttered, eyeing me carefully, truly curious.
Oh, I wanted to hurt him, and then I saw his blackened arm. He glanced down at it and then me. “Don’t worry, I’m going to be fine.”
“You keep saying that. I’m fine. You’re going to be fine. How are you sure? The only way you could know that is if you somehow knew what was going to happen and this…and can now solve it…like you reversed time.”