I drop the sack near my feet and dig out one of the medium-sized stones. I bring out the pewter pocket watch and click it open, lay it on the hard-packed earth. The ticking reverberates against the bark of the thin pines. I watch the second hand jump, jump, jump…

I smash the rock against the glass face of the clock.

My hand trembles as I stare down at the broken timepiece. I release the rock back into the pile in the sack, flex my fingers. Sweat trickles down my temples. A bird flutters its wings too loudly.

The silence is unsettling.

A glimpse of Mary’s smiling face, then the image catches fire, smoldering into cracked, charred ash. All this time, I’ve held on to an ideal memory of her that shaped who I became.

A monster.

I hear Blakely’s voice as she says it, and I’m no longer denying the truth. Just as Blakely shamelessly accepts who she is, I accept who I’ve become.

When I emerge inside the chamber, I’ve been reborn. An all-new synthesis of a man. What I have to do has never been more clear.

I am a curer of disease.

My life’s work cannot succumb to one malady—one deviation in the design.

She’s my illness…and there’s no cure.

Elimination.

The loud thunk of the sack hitting the wood floor startles Blakely, and she looks up to find me in the one source of light beneath the bare bulb. She’s absorbed by the darkness of the room, but I can still make out her silhouette.

A thousand ticking hands, a thousand glass faces peering down, reflecting her beautiful face back at me.

I empty the sack of rocks.

“Alex, whatever you believe you have to do—”

“It’s no longer about what I believe.” I swoop down and select a stone from the pile. I turn the rock over as I inspect the smooth surface, the flaws. I chose this stone for her. I set it aside. It’s not yet time.

“You were right, Blakely,” I say. “Every beginning has an end, and we’ve reached ours.”

I hunt through the rocks and choose a larger rock, then I face the wall of floating clocks. I pitch the stone at the backlit clock in the center. The glass cracks, knocking the clock to the floor and shattering the face into shards.

“Willy Sturgis. Subject number one. Ten thirty-two P.M. was his expiration time.” I glance back at Blakely. “The time of his death. The time I killed him.”

Her knees are pulled to her chest, her eyes large and watching. She’s almost convincing of her helpless state, but I know better. She’s a temptress who will tear my throat out. She made me that promise.