Page 77 of Deja Who
Relief made her knees buckle; she sank into a kitchen chair with more than a little gratitude. If the chair hadn’t been there, she’d be on the floor. “Great, Cat. That’s wonderful. Okay.”
A pause. “Youdidscrew up the thing with Archer, didn’t you?”
“I had to get him away from me. This wretch went for my mother.”
“Yeah, he must have thought you loved her.” She could hear Cat’s sigh over the phone. “Friggin’ moron. So you... let’s see... went into bitch overdrive to drive him away?”
“Bitch four-wheel overdrive.” Was that a thing? Possibly not.
“But once you prevent your murder, you’ll fix it. Right? Leah? Right?”
“I...” She shook her head, viciously swallowed the lump in her throat. She hadzerotime for that nonsense. “I can’t imagine, Cat. And it’s just as well.”
“Friggin’ moron.”
“I suspect you’re not referring to my killer.”
“Come to the hotel with me. Stay as long as you want, we’llget a suite. My treat. Because you’ve got that ‘I think I’ll do something so fuckin’ stupid I’ll top every stupid thing I ever did’ tone in your voice.”
“No more hiding.”
“That’salsosomething they say on TV, and it’s usually followed by the hero having to duck a hail of bullets.”
“Bullets, ha. If only. Go.Now.”
“Fer Christ’s sake think it o—”
Leah hung up. Archer was safe. Cat was safe. She, of course, was not. But she never was, not in any life. She had never, ever felt safe and for a moment she couldn’t help thinking of Maya the Clock Snatcher, who always felt terrified at how time slipped by no matter how much she tried to slow it down. Who died an untimely death, but not the one she’d been doomed to relive dozens of times.
Leah had no plans to be hit by a car while helping someone else who had been hit by a car, but she did know the variable in this life: Archer. He was the thing that never happened before. He was the key to tricking fate into cutting the shit already.
But the cost was too high. His life for hers? Never.
Oh, never.
She stepped to the kitchen window and looked down at the streets. Archer was out there somewhere, which was fine. Her killer was, too. Which was not.
“Come on, come on,” she breathed, fogging the glass. “You know you want me. Come and get me.”
