Fated To Kill You

FATED TO KILL YOU Chapter 1: The Glimpse The future is a liar. I learned that the hard way, staring at a screen that showed my own death like it was breaking news. The quantum rig hummed against my temples. I'd been under for twelve minutes—twelve minutes too long. The images came in fragments. A flash of neon. A woman's scream. A headline— "World-Renowned Quantum Thief Slain in Brutal London Attack." "Fuck." I ripped the rig off my head. The room swam. I gripped the sink and stared at my reflection. Pale skin. Dark circles. Eyes that had seen too much. I'd seen a lot of horrible things in the future. But I'd never seen my own name in a headline. London. Three weeks from now. Three weeks. --- I didn't sleep that night. I sat on the edge of the bed, replaying the image over and over. The headline. The date. The location. My phone buzzed. A message from Anya: "Did you get the file?" "Yeah. Got something else too." "What?" "My death date." Her response came fast: "You need to come home. Now." Home. The safehouse in Tokyo. The only place that had ever felt safe. I laughed bitterly. "Home," I muttered. "Like I've ever had one." --- The next forty-eight hours were a blur of paranoia. I checked into a new hotel under a fake name. Dyed my hair darker. Bought new clothes. Threw away my phone and bought a burner. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the headline. Every time I tried to sleep, I heard the scream. Who was going to kill me? Some rival thief? A client who wanted me silenced? Chronos finally catching up? I didn't know. I'd seen the what, but not the who. Not the why. Not the how. Just the headline. Just my face. Just the date. Three weeks. --- I caught the red-eye to London three days before the date. Stupid, right? Walking right into the kill zone. But I had to know. Maybe if I was there, I could change it. Maybe. Such a dangerous word. The flight was agony. Every bump of turbulence made me flinch. I drank two mini bottles of whiskey and still couldn't stop shaking. I checked into a cheap hotel in Soho. Sat on the edge of the mattress and took stock of my weapons: a Glock 19, a switchblade, a stun gun disguised as a lipstick. Not enough. Not nearly enough. --- The first night was quiet. Too quiet. I lay awake, listening to the city breathe. Sirens in the distance. Laughter from the pub down the street. Footsteps in the hallway—just a drunk guest, not a killer. But every shadow looked like a threat. I turned on the TV, desperate for noise. The news talked about a heat wave. A political scandal. Nothing about a quantum thief being murdered. Not yet, I thought. But soon. --- The second night, I got a message on my burner phone. Unknown number. No text. Just an address. I stared at it for a long time. Someone knew I was in London. Someone wanted me at this address. It could be a trap. It could be the killer, setting me up. But it could also be an answer. I couldn't afford to ignore it. --- The address led me to a clock repair shop in Camden. The sign said "Vance & Co. Clockmakers Est. 1997." The windows were dark. The door was locked. But the light inside was on. I pressed my back against the wall and peered through the window. A workshop filled with clocks. Thousands of them. All ticking at once. And in the middle of the room, a man. Tall, broad-shouldered, with disheveled blond hair and the kind of face that should've come with a warning label. He was bent over a pocket watch, his hands moving with precision. He looked up. Right at me. "Get in or get out," he said, loud enough for me to hear through the glass. "But you're making my clocks anxious." I hesitated. Every instinct screamed at me to run. But I was out of options. Out of time. I tried the door. It opened. --- The shop smelled like metal and wood. The clocks ticked in a chaotic symphony, each slightly out of sync. The man straightened up and looked at me. He was handsome. Annoyingly so. Sharp cheekbones, blue eyes that had seen too much, and a smile that was trying to be charming but was really just... sad. "I know who you are," he said. "Good for you." "Relax." He leaned against his workbench. "If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't have invited you here." "You didn't invite me. You just sent an address." "Same thing." I pulled out my Glock. "Who the hell are you?" "Silas. Silas Vance." The name didn't ring any bells. "Should I know you?" He laughed. It was a warm sound, and I hated how it made me feel. "No. But you should know this." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of newspaper. He tossed it to me. I caught it with one hand, keeping my gun trained on him with the other. I unfolded it. My blood turned to ice. It was the headline. The same one I'd seen in my quantum glimpse. The same photo of my face. The same date. "World-Renowned Quantum Thief Slain in Brutal London Attack." "How—" My voice cracked. "How do you have this?" "I saw it too," Silas said softly. "A few weeks ago. Different rig, same future. We're both going to be there." "Going to be where?" "The attack. The one that kills you." He met my eyes. "I'm the one who's supposed to pull the trigger." The world tilted. I grabbed the doorframe to steady myself. "Bullshit." "It's true." He didn't sound happy about it. He sounded exhausted. "I saw it. Your face. The street. Everything. That's why I called you here. I need you to help me stop it." "Why would you want to stop it? If you're the one who kills me—" "Because I'm not a killer." He took a step closer. "I've done a lot of things. Stolen a lot of things. Run from a lot of things. But I've never killed anyone. I don't want to start with you." My gun shook in my hand. "Prove it." "Prove what?" "That you're not here to finish the job." He looked at me for a long moment. Then he reached into his pocket again—slowly—and pulled out a photo. He held it out. I took it. A picture of a woman. Young. Smiling. Pretty in a fragile way. "Her name was Ella," Silas said. "She was my partner. She died during a heist. My fault. My mistake." I looked at the photo, then back at him. His eyes were wet. "I've carried her for five years," he said. "Every day. Every night. I don't want to carry you too, Iris. I don't want to be the reason another person dies." I lowered my gun. The clocks kept ticking. The city kept humming. And in that tiny shop, surrounded by timepieces that measured every passing second, I realized something I'd never believed before. Maybe the future wasn't fixed after all. Maybe I had a choice. "Three days," I said. Silas nodded. "We have three days to figure out how to change it." "And if we can't?" He walked over to me. So close I could smell him—coffee and metal and something warm. He looked down at me with those sad blue eyes. "Then we die together." I should've been terrified. I should've run. Instead, I said, "Fine. But if you even look at me wrong, I'll shoot you before the future gets a chance." He smiled. It wasn't charming. It wasn't sad. It was real. "Deal." --- We sat in the back room of his shop, a cluttered office filled with clock parts and empty coffee mugs. "Here's what I know," Silas said, spreading papers across his desk. "The attack happens in three days. Shoreditch. Old warehouse district. There's going to be some kind of deal going down—something involving Chronos." "Chronos." The name made my stomach flip. "They're behind this?" "Everything is behind this." He handed me a file. "Chronos knows you're coming. They've set a trap." I flipped through the file. Photographs. Surveillance notes. A map of the warehouse district. "Why would they want me dead? I'm just a thief." "No. But you have something they want." I froze. "The information? The future data?" "Everything." He leaned in. "You're not just a thief, Iris. You're a variable. The one thing Chronos can't control. You're the one person who can see the future and still change it." I laughed bitterly. "I can't change it. I've never changed anything." "That's because you've never tried." I looked at him for a long moment. "You don't know me." "No. But I know what it's like to be scared of what's coming." He reached out and touched my hand. His fingers were warm. "I know what it's like to feel like the future is a prison. But it's not. It's just a possibility." I pulled my hand back. "You're the one who's supposed to kill me." "And I'm choosing not to." "Maybe you don't have a choice." "Everyone has a choice." His eyes were burning now. "Ella didn't have a choice. I made it for her. I'm not making that mistake again. Even if it kills me." I wanted to argue. I wanted to shut him down, push him away, run back to my hotel and pretend I'd never met him. But I was tired. So f*****g tired. And for the first time in years, I didn't want to be alone. "Fine. Three days. We try to change it." "We will." "Don't make promises you can't keep." He smiled again. "I never do." --- An hour later, I was lying on his office couch, staring at the ceiling. He'd offered to let me stay. Said his flat was just upstairs. Said I'd be safer there. I said no. And then I said yes. I couldn't explain it. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the hope I didn't want to feel. Or maybe, just maybe, it was him. He was a liar. He was a thief. He was the man who was supposed to kill me. And I was starting to like him. That was the most dangerous thing of all. "Hey," his voice came from the doorway. He was leaning against the frame, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his hair a mess. I hated how good he looked. "Got you a blanket. It's not much, but it's clean." "I don't need a blanket." "Yeah, you do." He tossed it to me. It landed on my face. "You've been shaking since you walked in. You think I don't notice?" I pulled the blanket down. "Why do you care?" "Because I'm trying to save your life." He walked over and sat on the edge of the couch. "And because it's nice, for once, to have someone who doesn't want something from me." "Maybe I do want something from you." "Like what?" "Answers. Why are you doing this? You don't owe me anything." He was quiet for a long moment. "Because I've been alone for five years," he said finally. "And it's f*****g miserable. I figured maybe I could save you from the same fate." I looked at him. Really looked. He was broken. Just like me. The worst part was, I felt less broken when he was around. "Three days," I whispered. "Three days." He nodded. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow, we start working." "And if it doesn't work?" "Then I'll fight it." He met my eyes. "I'll fight it until my last breath, Iris. You have to believe that." "Believe it. Or just hope?" He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my face. His touch was so gentle I almost cried. "Both." --- I watched him walk out of the room. The clocks in the shop kept ticking. Measuring seconds. Measuring minutes. Measuring the time I had left. Three days. Seventy-two hours. It felt like an eternity. It felt like nothing at all. I lay back down on the couch and stared at the ceiling. "You're falling for him," I whispered to myself. "You stupid, stupid i***t. He's going to kill you." But even as I said it, I didn't believe it. Because in the future I'd seen, I was smiling. Even as I died, I was smiling at him. Maybe that meant something. Maybe it meant nothing. Either way, I was about to find out. END OF CHAPTER 1