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I fell asleep at the table, waiting for Claire to knock on the door like some kind of fairy tale ending. I’m not sure exactly what I was imagining happening – perhaps I’d scoop her into my arms and we’d kiss and in the background from some mysterious place would rise the sound of Rod Stewart’s voice proclaiming us to be Forever Young and we’d fade off into the sunset, only to return for me to continue the Backstreet Boy tour seamlessly…

”Nick, please! Nick!” Claire’s voice echoed through my head. ”Please!”

My heart was racing, I could feel it bouncing off the chambers of my chest, like a pin ball machine, dinging and racking up points with each hit. I clutched the table, trying to keep my consciousness from slipping into that strange, doorless, lightless room… A slamming sound startled me awake and I sat up, the low parking lamp lights the only illumination as they melted in from the parking lot. I was staring into darkness on the bus, and my mind scrambled to make sense of the slamming - the door.

“Claire?” I gasped, my mouth dry as bone.

The shadows shifted and I realized there was somebody there, and I stood. I expected her to come around the corner, expected the happily ever after to begin.

“Hello, Nick.”

His voice was deep, etched with time and I felt the adrenaline in my veins, the excitement that had been pulsating my heart, die within me. My heart stopped and for a moment, I forgot to breathe as Dimitre Pyre stepped into the soft orange glow. I backed up, out of the pool of light, into the shadows, but like a cat’s eyes, Dimitre’s eyes followed me, traced my motions, like he could see in the dark.

He stepped closer, “I hear you are seeking someone,” he said quietly, patiently.

Brian’s suggestion slunk through my mind. They’re keeping her, they have Claire… I thought helplessly. I stared up at Dimitre. I didn’t dare to respond, didn’t dare to acknowledge in a positive or a negative way.

“I believe, Mr. Carter,” he said quietly, “That I have exactly what you are looking for.” He reached into his pocket on the breast of the nice grey suit coat he was wearing and withdrew a photograph of Claire, which he tossed into the lamp light on the table, where it spun, finally stopping perfectly angled so that I was staring into her gorgeous eyes.

“Claire,” I whispered.

Dimitri smiled, “Ah. So you she is the one, is she?”

I stared up at him. “Please,” I begged, “Please let her go. I’ll- I’ll do anything.”

Suddenly Amie was at my back. “Dimitre,” she said, her voice low.

“Amie,” he acknowledged her.

“Why on earth did they send you to collect him?” she asked.

Collect me? I looked at her with confusion, “Amie? Collect me?” I asked.

Amie turned to me, her face stony, “What, you haven’t put it together yet?” she asked, “Didn’t figure it out that maybe I wasn’t being everything that I was claiming to be. Ironic, is it not, that I found you and had changed my mind so drastically just after the ministry finds out you’ve ignored their warning…”

My mind was reeling.

I’d been duped. I’d been made to believe what I needed to believe in my blindness for Claire, in my desperation to find her, to reunite us together. I’d allowed myself to believe a lie, to deliver not only myself but my Claire into the hands of these heartless, cruel people.

And then I realized… I hadn’t been having dreams, I’d been having prophecies.

I looked back at Dimitre. “Where is she? Where is my Claire?”

“Relax,” he said throatily, “I will bring you to her.”



Within moments I was in a sleek black car, sandwiched between Amie and Dimitre. I had my palms on my knees, staring down at my feet. The lights of the city spun by us in streams of color and light. Horns honked and the world seemed to move in fast forward. I tried to focus on breathing in and out, on keeping my heart pounding.

Surely, I thought, this is how a Time Watcher is killed… by separation anxiety.

By the time the fellas realized I was gone, I’d probably be on the plane, on the way to New York. Nobody would think to come try to find me – except Brian, when I stood him up for our chalupas.