We both stare at the empty driveway. Both sides of the concrete are lined with beds of greenery dotted with little purple flowers. But even through the rose-tinted glass, I can’t find anything to appreciate about the view.

“I can’t believe he would ditch you,” she murmurs.

My thoughts spin. “You said he bolted upright. Did he remember something? Or could he have heard…someone?”

She widens her eyes. “You mean, like a voice? From the future?”

The older Bandit’s last words, a moment before I was ejected from Malice’s consciousness, flash through my mind.

Don’t worry, he said. I’ll fix this. I won’t let her mess up everything we’ve worked for.

I’ll fix this.

I’ll fix this.

I’ll fix this.

The pieces click together. “The timing’s too coincidental—one minute after I closed my eyes, when I was only gone for two. The future Bandit had already used all his jumps. Any more, and his mind will come apart.” The words sprint out of my mouth, but my thoughts have been lapping them and then some. “But our older selves had already decided to kill him. So he has nothing to lose by traveling to the past one more time.”

“Why?” Cristela’s eyes are shiny black ponds. “What did he need to say to his younger self that was so important?”

“Bandit loves me.” No truer words have ever been spoken in any time stream. When I was in the future, I felt his heart, and it was as unshakable as the laws of gravity. As inevitable as the rising of the sun. “I don’t mean this Bandit, in this time. Who knows what he feels? But the older Bandit loves the older me.

“He would’ve been thinking about me. Only me. How he can help me. How he can ease my pain.” I take a rattling breath. “I’m pretty sure he came back to tell his younger self to take the decision out of my hands.”

She blinks three times. Stops. And then blinks three more. “You mean to say…”

“Yep.” I look at the driveway once more, but this time through a shard of blue-colored glass. Same scene, new angle. The absence of his car now makes me want to howl, long and loud and never-ending. “Right at this moment, Bandit is either on his way to kill Archie…or himself.”

Chapter 50

Chapter 50

I fly over the highway, pushing the odometer to its limits. Seventy-five, eighty-five, ninety-five. And still, the car’s not going fast enough. Still, it can’t keep pace with the racing of my heart.

Bandit has at most a twenty-minute lead on me, but I have no idea where he’s going. I’m not sure what he’s planning. For all I know, he could’ve already flung himself off the road.