Lexi

I was fine the whole way through the lobby. I was fine going up the elevator. I was even fine while walking through the corridor to the apartment. But, once I was at the front door of Christian’s place, all I could do was stare at it.

Fox hunched over while staring at my face. “Uh, what’s happening right now?”

My hands were shaking, yet the rest of my body felt locked in place. “Sorry. I’m just—I don’t—I think we should do this tomorrow because I am so not able to function right now. Processing all the 13th Hour stuff was—god. That was a lot—and now I’m just in the wrong headspace to meet any--.”

The front door swung open as Christian stepped out and nearly collided with me. He looked up just in time. “Alexia! I’m so sorry. We didn’t hear the knock.”

Fox jerked a thumb in my direction and leaned forward. “That’s because this one is having a ser--.”

I reached my hand out to grab the doorframe and block Fox from Christian. “Don’t you even worry about it! It is all good in the neighborhood, which we happened to be in.” I finished by laughing hysterically.

Christian raised an eyebrow before his gaze moved to Fox. “You must be one of the friends Alexia mentioned meeting yesterday. I’m Mr. Doyle but you can call me Christian.” He reached his hand out to shake.

Fox made a smug face as he side-eyed me while shaking Christian’s hand. “Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Fox.”

Christian turned back around to the interior of his apartment. “Cameron! Alexia is here and she’s brought a friend!” He turned back to us with a small smile. “I really appreciate this, Alexia. And you as well, Fox. I’m sorry I have to run. Unfortunately, I rarely have a Saturday off. I’m headed to my office, but please come in. Make yourselves at home.”

Fox and I thanked Christian as he headed past us towards the elevator. We stepped into the large open space of the loft apartment, taking in the abstract art and décor that filled most of the walls and corners. There was the faint smell of cedarwood wafting through the air. One side of the loft was all glass with an amazing view of the city. To the right of the skyline was a set of stairs. Moving my vision up the steps to the second floor, I jumped back with a yelp when I saw a young man standing at the top looking down at me.

He immediately extended a hand out and came down the stairs. “I am so, so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You don’t have to apologize. Obviously, I knew you were here somewhere. You must be Cameron.”

He had sandy blonde hair like his dad, but his eyes were bigger and almond-shaped. His height seemed to be level with Fox’s but nowhere near the same build. Cameron was much leaner but I could still make out signs of a muscular tone beneath his t-shirt. “Yeah. And you’re Alexia.”

I reached my hand out to shake his, a smile beaming on my face. Part of me wanted to offer condolences about his mom, but only because I still felt a knot in my chest just at the idea of losing my own. So, I kept my mouth shut.

Our eyes were locked and time seemed to slowly pass between the meeting of our palms. Something about his gaze compelled me. I didn’t feel nervous or overwhelmed. There was a stillness like the whole world became silent and we were the only ones in it.

I should’ve been paying more attention to my hands. Fox tried to get my attention by grabbing my shoulder. The pressure of his grip pulled me from Cameron’s gaze, but it was too late. With a quick glance at my fingers, I saw the purple sparks. Time slowed down and sped up at the same time. I turned to Fox. He still had one hand on my shoulder. His other was reaching out to Cameron. The part of my shoulder Fox was holding illuminated with shimmering golden light. It was spreading towards my hand still holding Cameron’s. I pulled my hand away but it was no use. The purple light left my fingers and entered Cameron through the center of his torso. His eyes glazed over before he flew backward into a wall.

I stood there, wide-eyed and staring at a contorted Cameron a few yards away. My body began to shake and shiver. All of my limbs stopped working as I dropped to the floor. The silence in the air was deafening. I didn’t even realize my fingernails were digging into the wooden floorboards until almost all of them cracked under the pressure.

My breaths came in short and fast. I couldn’t look away from the stillness of Cameron’s face. A second later, I was on my feet again and Fox was in front of me. His mouth was moving in, but it was hard to understand what he was saying.

Fox must have realized what was happening because he grabbed my shoulders and looked me dead in the eyes. My body suddenly felt like it was defrosting. One after another, my limbs came alive again. But it was still too late. Though his eyes were open, Cameron wasn’t moving. My throat tore open to a scream I had never made before. If Fox had not been holding onto my wrists, I would’ve been able to move back, but he wouldn’t let me go.

My cheeks were wet, my throat was raw and my wrists were numb. Then there was a hot, stinging sensation against my face. Dumbfounded, I looked up to see Fox had one hand on my cheek while his other moved back and forth from his chest to mine. Fox’s eyebrows were pushed together while hard breaths came in and out of him until an instant calm worked its way through me.

He finally noticed a glimmer of awareness in my gaze. “Lexi, take my hands,” Fox said extending his palms out.

The world felt cloudy. It was like being in a dream. Nothing was stable. Nothing was real. The only thing I knew was that the world was cracked. Everything around me felt fractured. Meeting my palms to Fox’s, a spark passed between us. His gaze set on mine and our eyes locked. It’s just a nightmare. It’s not real. This isn’t real. It didn’t happen.

As my thoughts swirled in my mind, ribbons of bright green light exited my body and wrapped around me and Fox. The next second, I was staring at the door that led into Christian’s apartment. I turned to my left where Fox was standing. The look of shock on his face told me one clear thing. It hadn’t been a hallucination. Not this time or the time outside of Caldwell’s classroom.

I turned towards Fox and reached a hand out to his shoulder but before my fingers could make contact, he quickly looked at his watch. With wide eyes, Fox spun me around and pushed me towards the end of the hallway.

Once the elevators closed and Fox had hit the button to go back down to the lobby, he turned to me, eyes still wide. He seemed like he wanted to say something, but he just kept staring me up and down. His freaking out was becoming infectious as I felt anxiety rising within me. “Fox, say something.”

He rapidly shook his head, closed his eyes, and put a finger up to his lips. Eyes still closed, Fox took a deep breath and raised his hands, palms out and fingers spread. When he opened his eyes, they were glowing gold, again. I was starting to get used to the sight until his fingertips lit up the same color. Like laser pointers, the lights shot out from his fingers and traced their way over my body. I didn’t feel anything coming from it, but it was still unnerving. After a few seconds, Fox finished whatever he was doing and just stood there staring at me, albeit much calmer than he had been before.

I was about to make an inquiry but the elevator doors opened and Fox nodded towards the opening for me to follow. There wasn’t much choice because he was already moving towards the exit of the building. By the time I made it to the doors, Fox was on the sidewalk taking huge strides away. With a grunt, I took off towards him.

After catching up to Fox, I quickly grabbed his arm. “Fox! Stop. What’s wrong with you?”

He ran his hands down the sides of his face. “Well, princess, I just watched you kill someone and then rewind time. I need a second to process.”

I winced as he finished speaking. “Yikes. So, I guess you do remember that.”

Fox cocked his head back and furrowed his eyebrows. “Uh, yeah, Lexi. That kind of thing is hard to forget. How are you so chill right now? I mean, you were losing your shit over the 13th Hour?”

Scanning up and down the sidewalk, I could see Fox hadn’t been exaggerating. Not a single person batted an eye at our conversation. “This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. It’s just the first time someone else involved remembers it other than myself.”

The number of expressions that passed through Fox’s face was hard to count. Even worse, he was only making the bad kind. “What the hell does that even mean?! I thought you only just discovered you had magic!”

Regardless of no one listening, my head still spun around to make sure before stepping closer to Fox. “You are at an eleven and I need you at a two.” I moved back to allow some space between us. “It’s only happened once before and I thought I had hallucinated it. After Caldwell’s class yesterday, some stuff happened that was pretty much identical to what just happened at Christian’s.”

Fox was just about to say something when his face twisted with curiosity. “Wait a minute. You said Caldwell, which means it happened before you had Bio with Sabine?”

I thought back for a second and then nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Fox put a finger up to me and pulled out his phone. He texted faster than I had ever seen anyone text. Before I could comment, he was already done. His eyes looked around for a moment before he nodded toward another vacant alley. I followed him until we were standing behind a large dumpster, presumably to be out of public view. Once fully concealed, Fox took a deep breath and gripped my shoulders. “Alright, princess, this is going to feel super weird and you might throw up, but the sooner we get to where we need to go, the better.”

Fox had crazy eyes. I let out a heavy sigh before both of our bodies lit up with golden light. A second later, I was more nauseous than I had ever been in my life. The world was a blur of fast-moving colors. My body felt like it was moving in every direction at the same time which was giving me motion sickness.

When it all stopped, Fox and I were at a counter in the middle of a laundromat. Standing opposite us was an Asian man about my parents' age. The man looked at Fox, rolled his eyes, and then bent down before coming back up with a small trash can that he placed in front of me.

My eyebrows scrunched together before widening in horror. I grabbed the can and threw up everything inside me. The vomiting went on until I was dry heaving. I slowly lifted my head out of the tin can as intense exhaustion and shame settled over me. The man behind the counter took the trash can while Fox handed me a bottle of water.

I turned to Fox with a look of defeat on my face. “What, why, and where?”

Fox grimaced as he carefully moved strands of hair out of my face. “It’s sort of like super speed and no offense, princess, but we need to figure out why you killed someone and how you rewound time before it happens again.” He started to turn back to the man, who seemed unfazed by what Fox had said. “Oh, right. This is Mr. Huynh. He runs this laundromat that is actually a secret government headquarters.”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly placed my forehead on the cool counter. “You know what? I’m done asking questions. The answers are never helpful.”

I felt a hand rubbing my back before Fox spoke. “Well, on the plus side, at least you aren’t freaking out. I’d call that progress. Besides, it’s not like—oh, we gotta go.”

My head shot up as I looked up at Fox who was staring at Mr. Huynh. The older man’s eyes changed to light blue before he turned to the rows of dry cleaning behind him. The racks of clothes shimmered blue for a moment and then disappeared to reveal an elevator. I let out a groan but didn’t fight it when Fox shuffled me towards the open doors. With one arm around my shoulders, Fox beamed a smile at Mr. Huynh while vigorously waving.

We rode the elevator up in silence until the doors opened to a long hallway lit by only two hanging light fixtures, leaving it rather dim. I rolled my eyes and gestured to Fox to lead the way. He was all smiles as we took quick steps to the end of the hall towards a set of double doors. Once in front of them, Fox grabbed both knobs and opened the doors with gusto. They swung forward into a very large and intimidating office. The fire pit in the center sent a particularly unsettling feeling in me. At the far end of the office was a woman sitting at a glass desk while typing on her laptop. Her face was cold and stern as she stared at the computer screen until she heard us come in. A warm smile spread from her mouth to her eyes. There was something familiar about her face and wavy blonde hair.

Fox raised a hand up in the direction of the woman. “Lexi, this is my aunt, Felicity. Sabine’s mom,” he said before rushing forward.

I froze in place as the feeling of nonchalance disintegrated from my body. Okay, maybe there was some truth to what Sabine said about me always being everywhere.