Love with anyone was improbable. Unthinkable and horribly messy. A future to be avoided at all costs. Darren had proven that to me. Plus anyone who was stupid enough to love me might as well jump off a cliff and save themselves the trouble.

It wasn’t happening. I’d steer the future in the exact opposite direction.

But when I dug through the layers of timeghosts, visions of Altair and me were all I could find. My throat closed. There had to be other options.

Fate didn’t exist. I knew that better than anyone.

Then where are the other futures?

Everything was Altair.

Kisses and caresses; I finger-comb his hair; he steals a bite off my plate; I sit on his lap; we sleep next to each other, our legs tangling together; we walk hand in hand, grinning and cozy as can be.

My heart hammered in my chest. Holy hell. Where are the other freaking paths? The other choices? I refused to be locked into this nonsense.

“Quanta.” Nagi’s voice finally cut through my daze and I knew he’d said my name more than once. “What do you see?”

“Get him away from me.” I backed up, putting the couch between Altair Orpheus and me. His gaze bored into me, following me as timeghosts of us flickered in and out of the room, giggling and whispering sweet nothings.

A shriek pierced the gross couple scenes and my gaze flicked to the source.

My heart froze.

Future me kneels in a pool of Altair’s blood. He lies battered and lifeless. Tear tracks cut through the blood on my face, but my by my expression, I’m the one who just bled out. I turn toward the present me, voice flat and dead. “Don’t let this happen.”

Goose bumps pebbled my arms and I gripped my shaking arms to my chest. Had I just sent myself a premonition from the future?

That was new.

And fricking terrifying.

Shutting my eyes didn’t begin to block out the images and no matter how hard I fought the tide, I couldn’t close it off. Every love scene matched with a death scene.

Tair clutches my lifeless body; I try to grab him as he falls in a spray of bullets; both of us collapse in gunfire; we reach twitching hands for each other in a cloud of choking chemical gas.

Bloody figures blotted out the room. I held onto the wall, trying to keep steady.

This couldn’t happen.

But somehow it could.

I still didn’t believe in fate, but I believed in what I saw, and I could read between the lines.

I’d just found the reason for the blank.

One way or another, Altair Orpheus was going to destroy me.

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

ALTAIR

Quanta.

Quanta.

As she stumbled away, her name echoed in my head.

I knew her.