Page 148 of Fated

He keeps his gaze on me. My heart clatters in my chest as I take him in.

He’s alive. He’s here. For this moment he’s still here.

His black hair blows in the wind. His eyes are dark, his expression searching. His tattoos wind over his arms. He’s solid and strong. As he strides toward me he notes the blood, the sand, the cuts, and he when he looks into my eyes he starts to run.

I let out a sound, half-sob, half-need, and run down the steps and fly across the grass. I hit him under the shade of the clock tree. The burgundy flowers are open above us, sending down a spicy perfume. I leap at him and cling to him. I clasp him.

The breath whooshes from his lungs and he catches me, holding me to him.

“Becca?”

His voice. It rolls over me and I shake my head. “No, it’s me.”

He stiffens then. His breath catches and he looks down into my eyes. I grasp the cotton of his T-shirt, wrapping my legs around his middle.

“Fi?”

I nod, and then he takes my face and kisses me.

The kiss is the turbulent storming of a raging ocean. In his kiss I taste four months of want and need and pent-up longing. For me it’s the salty tears of the ocean, the knowledge he’s gone, and the prayer that I can save him.

He kisses me as if he’ll never let me go.

But he will. I won’t ever meet him in real life, as me, unless I save him.

“You came back,” he breathes, kissing the edges of my lips, feathering his hands over my face.

Then I shake my head. “No. Aaron.”

He pauses, looking into my eyes.

“I’m not Becca.”

He doesn’t understand.

“I’m Fi,” I say. “That’s my name. I dream that I’m here, and in my dreams I come to you. But I live in Geneva, two years in the future.”

“What?” He pulls back from me, scanning my face.

I tense in his arms, and my pulse pounds, Hurry, hurry, hurry.

“Another earthquake is coming. An aftershock.” I glance at the clock tree. “In twenty minutes. This half of the island is swallowed by the sea. In my time you’re dead. You, Amy, Sean. Everyone?—”

“What are you talking about?—?”

“I came back. I’m here to save you. Please. You trust me?”

His arms circle my hips, holding me against him. I feel the strong beat of his heart. He weighs my expression, his eyes searching. He’s teetering between belief and disbelief while the island waits on the edge of disaster.

I reach up, pressing my hand to the heat of his cheek.

Hurry.

“Please. I promised to come into the water after you, and you promised to keep holding out your hand.Please.”

“What you’re saying ... it doesn’t ...”

My heart beats, a desperate ticking, counting down until the island is swallowed.

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