Chapter 2 AVERY'S POV

I should've left.

I should've grabbed my paints, stormed out of the building, and flipped Chase Turner the finger on the way down. But I didn't. I stood there in the lobby of TempoTech like a woman trapped in a dream she couldn't wake from.

The mural was gone.

Erased. Wiped clean. Not a single stroke of my brush remained, like the entire afternoon had been sucked into a black hole.

It was impossible. And I don't say that lightly.

I've seen something weird. I've painted on haunted bridges in Prague. I've slept on rooftops in Seoul while a typhoon rolled in just to get the sky color right. I don't spook easily. But this?

This was something else.

"Avery Cole?" A man in a stiff gray suit approached. Bald, earpiece, government energy. "Mr. Turner would like to speak with you. He's asked that you come to his office."

My heart skipped. "Now?"

"Yes."

I looked past him, up toward the glass elevator shaft that led to the top floor. Where Chase ruled his empire like some aloof tech god.

I should say no. I should walk.

But I needed answers. And maybe, just maybe, he had them.

"Fine," I said, grabbing my backpack. "Lead the way, Agent Smith."

He didn't smile.

Figures.

The elevator ride was quiet. Too quiet. My reflection stared back at me from the mirrored walls, messy paint-streaked jeans, dark braid falling over one shoulder, green eyes too sharp for their own good. I looked like I belonged on the street, not in a glass tower owned by a man with perfectly calibrated cufflinks.

Still. I held my head high.

Let him try to rattle me again. I wasn't afraid of Chase Turner.

At least... I wasn't before.

Chase POV

She looked at me differently this time.

Not like an artist who'd just been fired. Not like a woman seething with rage. No, Avery Cole walked into my office like she already knew something was wrong.

And that terrified me more than the loops themselves.

"Take a seat," I said.

She didn't.

"Why am I still here?" she asked. "You fired me. Yelled at me. The mural vanished. Either I'm having a breakdown, or you're playing a game I don't understand."

I stepped around the desk slowly, hands in my pockets. "You remember it."

She blinked. "Of course I remember it. I painted it."

"No." I looked her dead in the eyes. "I fired you. We argued. You left. Then everything reset. I relived this moment twice already."

Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

I stepped closer. "And the first time, you didn't remember. But now... now you do. Something's changing."

She shook her head. "Are you trying to mess with me? What, is this some kind of corporate test? A loyalty experiment? Because I swear, Chase, I will throw your desk out that damn window if you don't start making sense."

God, she was infuriating. And brilliant. And alive in a way I'd forgotten people could be.

"I'm not testing you," I said, quieter now. "I think we're stuck in a time loop."

She stared at me.

Then I laughed. A short, disbelieving laugh.

"Right. Because that's totally normal."

"I created something," I said. "A prototype called the Resonator. It's meant to slow time around critical injuries. Medical application. But something went wrong. Time didn't slow. It folded."

"And now you're... looping?"

I nodded.

"And you dragged me into your science experiment?"

"I didn't drag anyone."

"You remembered me. That first reset. You said I didn't remember you but you remembered me. Why?"

I paused.

Because you're the only thing that doesn't glitch.

Because your voice cuts through the static in my brain like music I forgot I loved.

"I don't know yet," I said. A lie. A half-truth. "But you're connected to it."

Her brows furrowed. Her eyes darted to the wall of clocks behind me. "Let's say I believe you. What happens if we don't fix it?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "But every reset gets shorter. We're running out of time."

Her laugh faded. "So we're both stuck in a ticking time bomb of your own making."

"Yes."

She sat down.

Finally,

"Alright then," she said. "Let's fix it."

Avery POV

There's a kind of silence that comes after the impossible.

Don't panic. Not fear. Just... stillness. Like your brain refuses to process what your heart already knows.

I sat across from the richest man in New York while he told me the world was stuck on repeat. And for some reason, I believed him.

Maybe it was the exhaustion in his eyes. Maybe it was the fact that my own memories didn't line up. Or maybe it was the feeling I had when I looked at that blank wall where my mural used to be that sharp, gut-wrenching wrongness that couldn't be explained.

"You said the resets are getting shorter," I said. "How much time do we have?"

"First loop lasted six hours. Second, three. This one... it's been just under ninety minutes."

I swallowed. "So we have an hour and a half before time resets again?"

"Yes."

I stood. "Then we better move."

"Move where?"

"To the thing you broke," I snapped. "The Resonator."

Chase blinked. "You want me to show you classified tech?"

"Are you seriously playing the secrecy card right now? You said I'm connected to this, right? Then maybe I can help."

He stared at me for a long moment. Then nodded. "Follow me."

Chase POV

She walked like a soldier's purpose in every step, fire in every stride. I trailed behind her through the halls of TempoTech, wondering how the hell I'd gone from corporate warlord to rogue time traveler in less than a week.

The Resonator lab was on Sublevel Three. We bypassed security with no point in passwords when the world would reset before the day ended.

The door slid open.

Avery stopped cold.

In the center of the room stood the Resonator sleek metal, humming softly, surrounded by a ring of analog clocks ticking in dissonance.

"What the hell..." she murmured. "Those clocks... they look exactly like the ones in your office."

"They're synced to microfluctuations in the loop," I said. "I started tracking them after the second reset."

She stepped closer. "And the mural?"

"I think the mural you're painting is acting as some kind of emotional tether. You painted the truth. It resonated. Left a mark on time itself."

She turned to me, expression unreadable. "That sounds like something out of a movie."

I smiled faintly. "We might be living one."

She ran a hand over the cold frame of the Resonator. "So how do we stop it?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me."

Avery POV

I didn't ask to be part of this.

I didn't ask to be dragged into some timeline-shattering machine or caught between an empire and a man too damaged to admit he's terrified. But I'm here. And as the clocks ticked louder and the air in the room thickened, I realized something awful.

I was starting to care.

About him.

About this.

About the fate of time itself.

I pressed my hand to the Resonator's core. It was vibrating. Softly. Like a heartbeat.

And suddenly... I knew.

Not the full answer. Not how to save us. But one thing was certain.

"This isn't just science," I said. "This thing isn't running on equations and circuits. It's running on emotion. Memory. Connection."

Chase started. "You think"

"I know," I interrupted. "You made this to stop people from dying, right? To give them more time. But time isn't a machine, Chase. It's people. Feelings. Regret. Love. Pain. You tried to control it without respecting what it's made of."

And at that moment, something in his face broke.

He stepped closer. "Then how do we fix it?"

I looked up at him.

And I knew what had to be done.

"We stop trying to outrun it," I whispered. "We confront what we're avoiding. You built this to undo your father's death. I painted that mural to expose the truth. But maybe... we're both stuck until we face what we're really afraid of."

His jaw tightened.

And then-

BAM.

The power flickered. The clocks began to spin wildly.

The loop was ending.

I grabbed his hand. "Next time we meet, tell me the truth. About everything. Don't hide."

He stared at me. "Avery"

But the world blinked.

Time collapsed.