The Echo Loopers stood in silence, their half-flickering bodies like static given shape. Their leader, the tall man in the coat, kept his blade lowered but ready. The faint hum of warped time clung to the air, prickling Bobby’s skin.
Darius’s voice carried across the yard, raw but steady.
“I’ll make you a deal.”
The Loopers didn’t laugh. Didn’t jeer. They just stilled, as if his words had meaning to them.
“What deal could you possibly offer?” the tall man asked, his voice flat.
Darius straightened slowly, pain etched into every line of his face. His shoulder bled freely from the blade wound, but he ignored it.
“You want the seed dead before it grows,” Darius rasped. “You want to stop him before he becomes… Bob.”
Bobby’s breath caught in his throat. His name—or at least, what it coul
