Cover

Dedication

For Bill & Jon, because you love these books

Part One

“Who are you?”

“No one of consequence.”

“I must know.”

“Get used to disappointment.”

—William Goldman, The Princess Bride

1

Dorothy

NOVEMBER 12, 2077

Midnight, read the note.

Water churned around Zora’s Jet Ski, the black surface of it reflecting the light of the ever-shifting anil. A breeze moved over the waves, creating ripples and causing Ash’s empty motorboat to rock. Seated behind Zora, Dorothy heard only the sound of creaking wood and lapping waves.

It was 12:05 now. Whatever happened here had only occurred a few short minutes ago.

Dorothy crumpled the damp paper in one hand, a muscle near the corner of her eye twitching. She felt each of those minutes as if they were hours, years. Time was such a fickle, funny thing.

She tightened her grip on Zora’s waist, her breath lodged deep in her throat. It was only when she looked very closely at the water that she could see the blood. The deep red of it looked black until the anil’s light caught it just so.

Dorothy could smell it, though. Even under the scent of seawater and rot, the smell of the blood was unmistakable. She felt ill and found that she had to look away.

“Seen enough?” Zora asked. Her voice was a low rumble but, even so, the emotion laced through it startled Dorothy. She’d always known Zora to be stoic to the point of appearing to have no emotions at all. She glanced at Zora’s back, frowning, wondering if the other girl was holding back tears.

And why wouldn’t she cry? Ash had been her best friend, practically her brother. And now he was . . .

Dorothy swallowed, pushing the thought away. She couldn’t let her mind travel to that place, not yet. Not until she had proof.

“Can you get any closer?” she asked, voice thick.

Zora hesitated. Dorothy gnawed on her lip, waiting for her to make a decision, her heart sinking a little lower with each passing second. She’d so hoped they could be on the same side, that Zora would believe her when she said that she had nothing to do with whatever had happened to Ash.

Minutes ago, Zora had shown up outside of her room at the Fairmont hotel, headquarters of the Black Cirkus. Dorothy still thought of it as her room, but she supposed it might be more accurate, now, to call it her cell. Earlier that evening Mac Murphy had taken control of the Black Cirkus and Dorothy’s rule as Quinn Fox, vicious assassin and leader of New Seattle’s deadliest gang, had come to an end. She’d been overthrown by her own people, held prisoner in the very hotel she had won for them.

She’d still be there now if Zora hadn’t fought her way through the Cirkus Freaks standing guard and set her free.

Of course, if Dorothy had thought for a second that Zora had been there to rescue her, she’d been sorely mistaken. A moment after breaking into her room, Zora had shoved a gun in her face and produced a note that Dorothy seemed to have written herself coaxing Ash to this very spot, at midnight, so that she could . . .

Dorothy’s eyes drifted back to the blood on the water. So that she could what? she wondered.

Stab him? Kill him?

Dorothy felt the horror of it hit her like a punch. She knew in her heart that she would never do that. Even after Mac Murphy had put a bounty on Ash’s head, blaming him for Roman’s death, the only thing Dorothy had cared about was finding Ash and warning him. None of this made any sense.

Was it possible for a man to survive after losing so much blood? Or was she fooling herself, thinking there was any chance that Ash could still be alive?

The Jet Ski’s engine suddenly roared to life, breaking the stillness of the night. Zora brought them up to the side of Ash’s boat, and Dorothy’s heart lifted. Maybe they could work together after all. Maybe—

“Do I have to tell you what I’ll do to you if you try to run?” Zora asked, her voice a low growl.

Dorothy’s heart fell once more.

“You do not,” she said, and, gathering the damp edges of her cloak in her fists, she climbed from the Jet Ski to the small, rocking boat.

She heard a click behind her and knew, without turning, that Zora had a gun aimed at her head. Again. The back of her neck prickled.

You would do the same, if you were in her position, she reminded herself. Zora had every right to be cautious. For the last year, Dorothy had been working against her and the rest of the Chronology Protection Agency, trying to steal the secrets of time travel out from under their noses. It made sense that Zora didn’t trust her.

But it still hurt like hell.

Dorothy swallowed, shifting her attention back to the boat. Her throat was dry, and she could hardly hear anything over the steady beat of her heart at her temples. The boat rocked gently in the waves, and Dorothy softened her knees and leaned forward slightly, to keep from losing her balance. It was an automatic reflex, picked up after spending the last year in this watery city.

There was a spray of blood over the worn wood, a black scuff that could have come from a boot. It looked exactly as someone would expect it to look after two people had a brief confrontation and one of them had been stabbed and thrown overboard. Dorothy wasn’t a detective, but even she had to admit that this was all rather damning.

She released a heavy sigh, tears clogging up her throat. The note in her hands felt suddenly hot, like it could burn straight through her skin, and there was a part of her that wanted to throw it into the water and watch it sink, ink bleeding until it looked like nothing at all. None of this made sense. It was like a riddle without any answer, and yet Dorothy kept staring at the scene, hoping that something would jump out at her, tell her what had really happened.

She couldn’t have done this. She was being set up, somehow, made to take the fall for someone else’s crime. But who could possibly benefit from that? And why?

Her boot knocked against something hard, which skittered across the bottom of the ship. Dorothy frowned and crouched lower.

It was a gun. And not just any gun. Ash’s gun, the navy-issued snub-nosed S & W revolver he’d brought into the future with him from his original timeline—1946. Dorothy had known him only to be without it when Roman had stolen it from him.

She picked the gun up, her throat constricting. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Zora was staring at it, her lips slightly parted. Emotion flashed across her face—pain, confusion, fear—gone a moment later.

“That . . . ,” Zora said, in a croak of a voice, and Dorothy knew they were both thinking the same thing: Ash wouldn’t have left his gun behind voluntarily.

A light appeared in the darkness, a small circle bobbing over the waves. A headlight, Dorothy thought, frowning. Or else a spotlight attached to a boat.

Another appeared, and then two more.

Five. A dozen.

Blast, Dorothy thought. Every nerve in her body sparked. The lights glimmered in and out of focus as they passed behind distant trees and wove around buildings. They seemed far away, but the flatness of the water caused sound to carry in strange waves. Dorothy heard voices now, laughing and talking as clearly as if they were right beside her. A series of sharp cracks broke through the night.

Gunshots. She stiffened, fear crawling up her spine.

“The Black Cirkus,” she murmured, glancing at Zora. “They’ll be here in minutes.”

“They must’ve followed me,” said Zora, her voice so low that Dorothy almost didn’t hear her. Her dark eyes shone in the light coming off the anil.

“They’re looking for Ash,” Dorothy added. “Before you came for me, Mac put a bounty on his head. Every Cirkus Freak in the city will be wanting to bring him in.” She didn’t say dead or alive, but she didn’t have to.

Zora lifted an eyebrow, questioning. There was more to that story, of course, but there wasn’t time for Dorothy to get to it just now. What happened in the future, with Roman, was still too raw for her to think about without risking tears, and she’d be damned if she was going to cry in front of Zora.

She lowered Ash’s gun so it wouldn’t be perceived as a threat and forced herself to meet Zora’s dark eyes.

“Take me with you, and I’ll tell you everything I know,” she said.

Another gunshot exploded in the night. Zora flinched. She looked at Dorothy again, and Dorothy could see the struggle playing out on her face. Zora didn’t want to trust her but, just now, she didn’t have much of a choice.

“Fine,” Zora said, after a long moment. “We can’t be found out here, anyway.” She twisted the handle of her Jet Ski, and the engine growled to life. “Get on.”

Dorothy tucked Ash’s gun inside of her cloak and climbed onto Zora’s Jet Ski, a flicker of triumph moving through her as she wrapped her hands around Zora’s waist. “Do you know somewhere we can go? Where they won’t look for us?”

Zora, gruff, said, “I can think of a place.”

2

A building appeared in the distance, nestled between the taller skyscrapers. It looked like it was made entirely of mirrors, but thick vines crawled over the exterior, making it impossible to tell for sure. Water reflected in the outside walls, creating the illusion that the structure was moving.

Dorothy frowned as they drew closer. They were in Black Cirkus territory, only a few blocks from the hotel that served as the gang’s headquarters, and yet, she’d never been here before. She’d noticed the building before, obviously. It looked almost like a giant diamond, making it hard to miss, but she’d never paid it much attention. So many of the buildings downtown were flooded to the point of being unusable.

“What is this place?” she asked as Zora pulled the Jet Ski up to the dock wrapped around the building’s outer walls. The Jet Ski’s headlight glimmered off the glass, the brightness making Dorothy’s eyes water.

“Old library,” Zora said, cutting the engine.

“This was a library?” The libraries in Dorothy’s time had been dusty, brick structures. Nothing like this.

“Pretty, right?” Zora said, softening. “You should have seen it before the floods. It was my favorite place in the whole city.”

Dorothy fisted her hands, her palms suddenly clammy. Was that kindness she’d just heard? It felt like a foolish thing to hope for, and yet she stole a glance at Zora, blood pounding in her ears. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

But there was no kindness in Zora’s face. Her eyes were cold and narrowed, her lips thin.

Please don’t let it be too late, Dorothy thought.

They climbed off the Jet Ski and made their way inside. Mildewed books towered around the entrance, sending deeper shadows over the tile floor. There didn’t appear to be any lights, or, at least, not any working lights. The dark inside was deep and perfect, but Zora was able to pick her way through the surrounding clutter easily, as though she’d done it many times before.

Dorothy followed her into a wide, open space lit with a half-dozen flickering candles. Here, she saw that they weren’t alone. Chandra, a girl with dark skin, black hair, and thick glasses was playing a card game at a rickety table. Willis towered behind her, his skin and hair pale beneath black clothes. The bones in his face slanted at sharp angles, causing the skin to pull too tight over his cheeks and chin. Neither seemed to have noticed them come in.

Willis leaned over Chandra’s shoulder and touched one of her cards with the tip of his massive finger. He said, in a deep, velvety voice, “You missed the ace.”

“I didn’t miss the ace,” Chandra snapped, rolling her eyes. “I was just saving it.”

Willis frowned. “Saving it?”

“I like saving up a bunch of cards in a row and then, when I’m ready, I get to go bam bam bam and do them all at the same time.” She mimed flipping a bunch of cards onto the table. “It’s fun.”

“I didn’t realize solitaire could be quite so exciting,” Willis murmured, a smile curling his lips.

Dorothy felt an ache, watching them. She’d forgotten what it was like to be around these people, how comforting it could be, almost like having a family. Once, she’d thought that Willis and Chandra could become her friends.

But that was a long time ago. She hadn’t seen either of them in over a year and, since then, things had gotten . . .

Complicated.

Her smile flickered. If she’d made different choices, she might be sitting among them right now, playing cards and laughing. It was much too late for all that. The past year seemed to rise up between them, massive. She doubted either of them would consider her a friend anymore.

Still, she had to try. She took a step toward them, tentative. “Hell—”

She was interrupted by a click of metal, the feel of something small and cold pressing against the skin on her neck. She snapped her mouth shut, swallowing the rest of her greeting.

Zora was pointing that gun at her again.

Lovely.

Dorothy’s mangled greeting had drawn the attention of both Chandra and Willis. They’d looked up from their card game and were staring, but Dorothy couldn’t tell whether they were surprised or afraid. Perhaps a little of both.

“Try anything and I’ll make that pretty face of yours a little less pretty.” Zora removed the barrel of the gun from the back of Dorothy’s neck, but she kept the thing trained on Dorothy’s head as she moved around to her other side.

Dorothy bit back her disappointment. She was used to this feeling, after all. She couldn’t think of a day in her life when some form of aching loneliness hadn’t plagued her. Even when Roman had been alive, she’d been well aware that the rest of their gang had only tolerated her out of fear.

But she wouldn’t have anyone pity her. She may not have a friend in this world, but she did have some pride.

“I’m not sure it’s possible to make my face any less pretty,” she murmured, a poor attempt at a joke. She motioned to the scar that cut across one of her eyes and curled into the corner of her mouth.

Chandra released a surprised laugh. Dorothy glanced at her, a flare of hope shooting through her chest, but Chandra had quickly recovered and gone back to studying the cards spread across the table before her, brow furrowed, all traces of laughter scrubbed from her face. Willis met Dorothy’s eyes, but his gaze was chilly. It made Dorothy’s heart hurt.

She shouldn’t be so surprised by this less-than-warm welcome, she knew. In the year since they’d last seen each other, Dorothy had fallen out of a time machine, gotten her face carved up, taken over a bloodthirsty gang, and risen to the top echelons of power in New Seattle, becoming Quinn Fox: assassin, murderer, rumored cannibal. This had all been possible because of the (quite false) stories about what a violent monster she was, but Dorothy hadn’t been bothered about any of that. Power was power. She’d lived long enough without any of her own to appreciate it in whatever form she could get.

She and Roman had come up with the rumors about her viciousness to keep her safe, and they had no more truth to them than most fairy tales. But still, they’d stuck. People loved to tell horror stories.

Unfortunately, Dorothy found that they were less likely to tell the happy stories. Like how she’d tried to save the city. How she and Roman had restored electricity and brought back much-needed medical supplies, among other things. People seemed to prefer gruesome lies to the truth.

Anyway, none of that mattered anymore. Everything, all that she and Roman had built, had been taken away. In the course of just twenty-four hours, Mac Murphy had managed to steal her time machine and take control of her gang. Quinn Fox was gone, and she was only Dorothy again. Roman, her closest ally and the only person she’d actually trusted in this godforsaken city, had been shot and left for dead in the blackened ruins of the future.

And Ash . . .

Dorothy’s throat closed just thinking of it. She couldn’t let herself dwell on what may or may not have happened to Ash just now.

“Sit,” Zora said, pointing to a stool near Chandra.

Dorothy gathered up the wet ends of her cloak and sat, chair creaking beneath her. Despite everything, she was glad to be here. Back at the Fairmont, she knew everyone wanted to kill her. Here it might just be two out of three.

“Well?” Chandra’s eyes skittered toward Dorothy and away again. “What did you find?”

Willis added, “Is he really—”

Neither of them actually said the word dead, but Dorothy heard it ringing through the air, almost as though it were being sung on a loop.

He’s not dead! she wanted to scream. He couldn’t be.

But she didn’t actually have any proof of that. She was holding tight to the fact that they hadn’t found Ash’s body, but that damn boat was floating in the middle of the Puget Sound. Any murderer with half a brain would’ve thought to drop him over the side of the boat, allowing his body to sink to the ocean floor. They wouldn’t have found a body, no matter what had happened.

Dorothy stared down at her hands, blinking hard. She wouldn’t let herself cry. Not here, not in front of these people who hated her.

“We found his boat outside the anil,” Zora was saying. Her voice cracked as she added, “It was covered . . . there was blood, everywhere.”

There was a beat of silence. And then—

“You actually did it,” Chandra murmured. “You killed him.”

Dorothy lifted her eyes and found Chandra glaring back at her, arms folded across her chest. It was like a knife twisting through her chest. She couldn’t remember ever seeing Chandra angry before.

“I didn’t kill him,” Dorothy insisted. She looked from Chandra to Willis but found no sympathy in either of their faces. What would they do to her, if she couldn’t make them believe her? Her voice began to waver. “You—you have to believe me . . . I was as surprised to find that empty boat as Zora was!”

Willis’s eyes seemed to bore into her. “Ash used to see visions of his future,” he said, very slowly. “Prememories, they’re called. It’s a phenomenon that can sometimes happen when you pass through an anil. The brain short-circuits, forgetting that the future hasn’t happened yet. When you have a prememory, you can remember an experience from the future as easily as you might remember a real memory.”

Cold dread slithered down Dorothy’s spine. Her mouth felt suddenly dry.

She’d had a prememory before. When she first traveled through time with the Chronology Protection Agency, she’d had a series of short, dreamlike premonitions of her future. It had been unnerving, to say the least, when those premonitions had actually started coming true.

What had Ash seen? Had it been something bad about her? Had she done something terrible?

She wet her lips, her heart beating in her throat. “Are you trying to say that Ash saw his own death?”

The look in Willis’s eyes suggested that she might be better off not knowing. “He did,” he said, after a moment. “He had a recurring prememory, one that he saw nearly every time he entered an anil. In the prememory, he met a woman outside the anil, and she stabbed him. It was only recently that he learned that the woman from his prememory was Quinn Fox.” Willis nodded. “You.”

Dorothy’s dread was sudden and sickening. No wonder they were all so sure of her guilt.

She touched her cloak, nerves creeping up the back of her neck as she felt the paper in her inner pocket rustle. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard of someone seeing visions of their own death before it had happened. Roman had left her a note before he’d died. I’ve been haunted by memories of my own death, it read. So, it seemed, he’d been familiar with prememories, too.

She dropped her hand, refocusing her attention on Willis. “I was trapped in my room at the Fairmont until Zora showed up and took out the men guarding my door,” she said very carefully. “This note that Zora found, it asked Ash to meet at midnight, but I couldn’t have gotten there in time. Whatever Ash saw in his prememory, I couldn’t have done this.”

Willis studied her through slits of eyes, chewing his lip. There was a stretch of silence, and then Zora released a low sigh.

“I did find her at the hotel,” she said, resigned. “She’s telling the truth about that.”

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

Enjoyed this preview? ❤️ Do not stop here!

Read the complete book free online → 🔗

Continue reading now on BooksBarbecue and discover every page!

Love reading? Bookmark BooksBarbecue.com for more amazing books!

Happy Reading!