"Elle."
Her name pulled her up from the dark.
"Elle—hey. Wake up."
The voice sounded far away, warped, like it was echoing through water. Her head throbbed viciously, every pulse sending a sharp ache through her skull. She tried to move and realized she couldn't—her arms were bound behind her, her body stiff and sore.
"Elle," Daniel said again, closer now. Panicked. "Please."
Before she could answer, hands grabbed the bag over her head and yanked it off.
Light burned her eyes.
Elle gasped, blinking rapidly as the room swam into focus. They were in a warehouse—wide, cavernous, cold. Metal beams stretched overhead. The air smelled like oil, dust, and ozone. A few industrial lights hung low, casting long shadows across the concrete floor.
Behind her, Daniel groaned softly.
In front of them stood a machine.
It looked like a pod—sleek, curved metal and glass, veins of soft blue light running along its surface. Something out of a scifi thriller movie.
"Oh hell," Elle muttered.
The exterior wasn't the problem, Elle could feel something sinister hovering around it. The feeling was like a dark grey cloud, gathering around; it was ominous and foreboding. Elle didn't know what that machine was but her Instinct screamed wrong.
Elle quickly looked around to assess the damage.
Four armed men, one for each corner of the room, with two more by the entrance. She guessed there were more outside judging from the swam of armed men when they pulled up.
While she could just as easily walk out unscathed she had to account for Daniel, a human with zero to no fighting skills, not to mention her only plausible weakness. That meant she had to move him away from her before she attacked, but being with her was the only thing keeping him alive.
Think Elle, think.
A man stepped into view, maybe in his early 20s, clapping his hands together once like he was pleased with himself.
"Finally," he said lightly. "How I dreamed of this day."
He was tall, handsome in a way that felt almost unfair—boyish, but sharpened by age and confidence. He had dark brown eyes that appeared almost black under the bright manufactured lights of the warehouse. He had a wavy wolf-cut hairstyle that looked like he ran his hands through it haphazardly but still fell across his face like a planned hairstyle. He wore a tailored coat and was wearing one of those fancy watches Elle knew cost more than she cared to check.
Vandeberg.
She wasn't so uninterested with life not to know who he was. You saw his ads everywhere, almost all of the medicine that were supplied by hospitals were from his pharmaceutical company, this man was everywhere but out of your face about his success and wealth.
He turned his head toward Reggie, who stood off to the side with his arms crossed. "Why did you bring the boy?"
Reggie shrugged. "He's needed too."
Vandeberg didn't even look annoyed. "Is he?"
Reggie sweated. His eyes scattering around looking for an answer told Elle that he probably just made an excuse to his brothers to save Daniel's life and he was doing it again.
Luckily Vandeberg waved it off dismissively. "No matter. You brought her."
Elle snarled. "You absolute psychopath—"
"Elle," Daniel hissed urgently, eyes wide. "Please don't yell at the guy who very obviously paid to have us kidnapped and literally owns the entire world."
She shot him a look. "Now is not the time—"
Vandeberg laughed softly and finally turned fully toward them.
Elle glared. "Whatever you think I did, I definitely did but if you let my friend here go, I will kill you pretty fast."
Daniel visibly paled. "Elle!"
"Okay fine, I won't kill you," Elle turned her head to Daniel, "That better?"
He looked sick by now.
Vandeberg walked over slowly, the sound of his tailored shoes grabbed their attention. They turned back to him.
Elle narrowed her eyes.
He kneeled down at a safe distance from her and stared at her face.
Really stared.
His expression shifted—something between relief, then disbelief and awe, like he was staring at a ghost that had stepped out of a childhood nightmare.
"…It really is you," he breathed.
Elle bristled. "You dragged me here to stare at me?"
Vandeberg didn't answer immediately. Instead, he tilted his head, studying her face like he was trying to align memory with reality. His bangs fell over his eyes and the weariness on his face peaked through. Suddenly he didn't look like an adult anymore, but just a kid figuring life out.
"June 17th," he said suddenly. "Ten years ago. 2:43 a.m."
Elle frowned. "I don't know what you're talking about."
His lips curved into a slow, reverent smile. The kind of smile when you finally find your favorite toy under the couch five years too late.
"I've been looking for you for a decade," he said quietly.
Daniel stiffened. "Okay, that's—deeply unsettling."
Vandeberg ignored him.
"When I was a child," he continued, dark eyes never leaving Elle, "a meteor crashed into my backyard. Small thing. Barely made the news. I ran outside because I thought the sky was ending."
He chuckled softly at the memory.
"And instead, I saw you."
Elle's stomach twisted.
"I saw time break," Vandeberg said, his voice lowering. "I watched it reverse. In real time. Trees bending backward. Fire retracting into itself. The night…undoing. And you were at the center of it all."
He tapped his chest lightly. "And I felt it too. Like the universe rewound around my bones. For thirteen whole seconds."
The warehouse felt suddenly too quiet.
"I spent the rest of my life looking for you," he said. "Because I knew—right then—that you were the key."
His gaze flicked briefly to the pod behind him, then returned to Elle with intensity that made her skin crawl.
"You," he said simply. "You are time travel personified. The girl who cheats death at every turn, the immortal girl."
Daniel swallowed hard. He stared at the side of Elle's face, the way her eyes widened. She was no longer loud and impulsive, instead she was frozen in place.
Is this really happening? Is she actually immortal? But I saw her almost die three times. What is going on?
Elle's heart pounded—not with fear alone, but with the sickening realization that this man hadn't found her by accident.
He had been waiting.
And now… he finally had her.
This was exactly the kind of person Elle avoided at all costs.
Men who spoke like prophets. Men who looked at her like she was an answer instead of a person. He reminded her of the first person she thought to trust with her peculiarity. He was a religious man, a man of God.
Flashes of a dimly lit torture chamber flashed in her head, the sound of her screams resounding in the echo of her fractured psyche.
She forced a laugh, light and dismissive, and shook her head. "Wow. Okay. That's… flattering. But I think you've got the wrong girl."
Vandeberg didn't laugh back.
"I'm not special," she added smoothly. "I get that a lot. Easy mistake. Maybe you mixed me up with someone else?"
He stared at her like she was a lighthouse after years at sea.
"No," he said quietly. "I would never mistake you."
Elle's smile faltered.
"Your eye," Vandeberg continued, stepping closer. "I remember it. The way the light bends around it. I felt it then, and I feel it now."
Her stomach twisted.
"We're alike," he said, almost fondly. "Not the same—but made of the same material. You and I."
"Nope," Elle said quickly. "Hard pass."
She tilted her head, charm sliding back into place like armor. "Tell you what—why don't you let us go right now, and I promise I won't press charges. We'll all pretend this was a weird misunderstanding."
"Elle you literally threatened to kill him a few minutes ago." Daniel whisper yelled.
"That was before I found out exactly what he kidnapped us for," Elle replied through a flashy smile towards Vandeberg.
Vandeberg smiled.
"Why don't we just test it out?" he said, reaching into his holster.
The gun came out smoothly.
Elle's eyes widened.
Panic rushed out, not for herself but for Daniel.
Her death was long overdue, but Daniel—Daniel was human and absurdly fragile. He was unlucky enough to be kind to a girl with suicidal tendencies.
"Wait—" Daniel started.
The ceiling burst.
Something small and metallic dropped into the center of the room, clattering once against the concrete amidst the glass shards.
A dome. Smooth. Round. Unassuming.
Vandeberg and Elle both looked down.
Then it detonated.
Not fire but smoke exploded out. Thick, blinding, and swallowing the room whole in seconds.