cars and trucks bursts up, tossing my hair and ruffling my shirt. A semi passes beneath the already swaying walkway. The driver must have seen us because he lets loose the long bellow of his horn as though in warning, and I wonder if he’s calling the cops even now.
Not that it matters. It’s too late.
“It’s over,” the closest man says, edging even nearer. “Come with us. We don’t want to hurt you.”
It’s a lie. We both know it.
My eyes scan their faces. Each and every one is a person I would once have called a friend. Not recently. Certainly not for a dozen lifetimes. But once.
I scrape my palms on the hot, crumbly concrete, using the pain to focus my mind. There’s no barrier. I could jump. But they’d save me. They’re already too close.
Think.
Think.
The answer hits me, and my breath catches in terror.
“Sonya, you’re being ridiculous.” Marianna’s voice—belittling as always—strengthens my determination, even though my bones feel like water. I would rather die than let her have me. Than let her figure out how to become like me.
Because if that ever happened, gods help the entire world.
For the thousandth time I consider killing her. Killing them. But the delay would be momentary at best. There are dozens of them.
And only one of me.
Fortunately, there are also more than six billion people to hide among.
I close my eyes and a ripple of apprehension goes through the handful of operatives pointing weapons at me. I might have three seconds before they do something stupid. I picture my heart, beating so steadily, if way too fast. A sob catches in my throat, but I push it away.
And turn my heart to stone.
Literally.
The agony in my chest tries to force a scream from my lips, but it’s too late. It takes only a moment, maybe two, before I know I’ve done it.
I’ve killed myself.
And I taste victory on my tongue as everything goes black.
I sit up with a muffled scream, my hands clutching my chest. Air is honey-sweet on my tongue as I suck in breaths—gripping my arm with my nails to feel the pain. To assure myself that I’m alive.
Three nights in a row it’s been like this. Dreams of Sonya. Sonya running from what I can only assume are Reduciates: Earthbound bad guys. Sonya afraid of her own powers—afraid to protect herself.
And, of course, Sonya taking her own life. But in the dreams I’m not looking down at her. I’m not an observer. In the dreams I am her.
Am myself, I guess. In my past life. My most recent life.
But unlike true memories, this dream shifts every time it comes to me, the way I end my life changing with each passing night. I’ve pulled the trigger of a gun pressed to my head, thrown myself in front of a speeding semi.
But turning my heart to literal stone? This one was the worst. I don’t know if that’s how it happened. If any of them are how it happened. I don’t understand why my mind is making me see her death over and over—and why I can’t remember how it all actually went down.
Or better yet, why.
Well, I know why, technically. The secret. The one from way back in Rebecca’s time—the girl I was in the early nineteenth century. The one I told no one, not even my partner, Quinn. I was silenced at the end of that life, silenced myself at the end of my life as Sonya. But I don’t know what that secret is.
And I have a feeling the dreams won’t end until I figure it out.
I should remember. I’m an Earthbound—a cursed goddess who lives life after life, seeking my perfect love. I should remember all my lives. But something about the injuries I received in a plane crash last year have made everything … difficult.
My body is covered with sweat, and it’s not all from the harrowing dream. The Phoenix heat is sweltering even in the dusky hours of dawn, and the air conditioning is … less reliable than the hotel manager insinuated. I drag myself from sticky sheets to twist the tap on the sink that’s inches from the foot of the tiny single bed.
The water dribbling from the tap is lukewarm at best, but I’m in no position to be picky.
The spring heat is too intense, topping 110 for several days even before I arrived. The temperature broke records every day last week. I wonder if it’s part of the weather phenomenon my former guardian Mark was sure the virus was somehow causing. It seems like it must be. Everything in the world is crazy right now. The virus is spreading so quickly no one can get a truly accurate death count. Five thousand yesterday, one news channel said. Ten, claimed another.
Either way, it’s out of control, and nature apparently isn’t immune.
I don’t know how the hell I can possibly stop this, but Mark and his wife, Sammi, were certain I held the key, if I could just resurge with Logan—the boy Quinn is in this life. I have to trust that. It’s all I’ve got.
As I splash myself I consider again the braid of twine that Sammi gave me. The one Sonya made. Sammi kept it from when she encountered Sonya eighteen years ago. Sammi and her father were Curatoriates. They’re supposed to be the good guys—the opposite of the Reduciates. I’m not convinced it’s that simple. Neither was Rebecca. I have a feeling Sonya wasn’t either.
I could find out. The little braid is still in my faded red backpack where Sammi put it last week. It’ll give me my memories back. The memories that Sonya had.
Probably.
But considering the way the last awakening went, I’m not completely sure I’d survive a second round. Not without someone to help me. And I can’t take any risks until I resurge with Logan.
Or we’ll both be dead forever and the rest of the world will die with us.
That is the single truth that keeps me here. Trying.
I’m desperate. That is also a truth. More true than anything else in my life today. Besides, what I really need is to figure out how to wake Logan up before the Reduciates who are after me kill us both. And Sonya’s memories won’t help with that since she never found him during her life.
I turn on the leaky showerhead and duck into the tiny stall, sluicing away sweat as though I could somehow cleanse myself of the awful dream. Of this awful week. Everything is falling to pieces. I lean my head against the tiled wall and review the last few dismal days as water beats down on my back.
It started out so well a mere three days ago. After sleeping the whole night in a real bed for the first time in almost two weeks—not to mention getting my first shower in eight days—I woke up on Sunday morning ready to take on anything. I was in Phoenix, I’d located Logan, and I knew he was the one. The rest would be easy, I was certain. I didn’t care that the hotel towels didn’t look quite clean, or that the clerk had vastly under-reported how loud the train just outside my back window would be.
That first night I didn’t even care about the lack of reliable AC. I had a home base that didn’t require ID. And more importantly—thanks to getting