The café was almost too normal. Kael sat at the corner booth, fingers drumming against the ceramic cup of tea he hadn't touched. Outside the window, the sky was pinned in a blue so clean it felt like a screensaver. The air was warm, heavy. It made Kael sweat, but not from the heat. Something was off.
He checked the street again—no signs of watchers, no flickers, no loop anomalies. But his instincts screamed. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just a residue from last night's jump—two hours forward to see the lottery numbers. He'd only been there for three seconds, but time didn't like shortcuts.
He glanced up. The waitress, walking past his table, froze mid-step. Her foot hovered over the floor, her tray suspended with coffee halfway between hand and gravity. The man at the bar, laughing into his phone a moment ago, was now frozen mid-laugh, mouth parted in a warped half-smile.
Kael didn't move. He knew this.
Localized time stops. One of the Time Authorities' favorite tactics.
He shot out of the booth and scanned the room. Four pockets. Four still zones, clean and precise, like surgical incisions in reality. The café had become a patchwork of motion and stillness. His section was still moving—for now.
The back door. He ducked toward it, brushing past a young girl whose ice cream had frozen in mid-drip. Time stuttered near the counter—his foot sank into a slowed field, and he yanked it out like it was quicksand.
"You thought we wouldn't find you?" a voice echoed—not from the air, but from within his own stream of time.
They were here.
Kael bolted into the alley, tried to punch a jump—twenty minutes ahead. He felt the split instantly, like glass cracking inside his brain. His vision blurred, the present folding into itself, the future pulling at him.
He jumped.
Or tried to.
Mid-jump, something caught him—an invisible snare. Time bent, then snapped. He saw two versions of the café at once—one still moving, one dead still. He was in between. A limb in each.
Pain lanced through his ribs. His skin flickered, his mind stuttered. The Time Authorities appeared—not walking, unfolding into the moment. Black suits, eyes like dim lanterns, mouths closed in inhuman stillness.
Kael tried to push forward. His body wouldn't move. His breath existed only in fragments.
"You've breached protocol," one said, voice flat, ancient. "You are under arrest for unauthorized manipulation of linear frames."
They stepped closer, reality bending around their feet.
He screamed. Not from pain—from realization. He couldn't escape. Not now. Not from them.
Then, a light—sharp, slashing sideways through the tear in time. A ripple. A voice he hadn't heard in what felt like days.
"Move."
Aya.
Her hand gripped his shoulder, searing hot and cold all at once. She didn't hesitate. She didn't even look at the Authorities.
Time reformed with a snap. They tumbled into an open pocket—one she had carved herself. Her coat billowed behind her as she dragged him through a break in the alley wall that wasn't there a second ago.
They burst into another street—not from this time. A moment stolen from years before, or maybe after.
Kael stumbled, coughing. Aya didn't speak.
"How—?" he started.
She raised a finger. "Not here."
Behind them, the Authorities clawed at the break she'd made—but it held. Just barely.
Kael's chest heaved. His vision returned. Aya finally met his eyes. There was something there. Not anger. Not pity.
Warning.
"You're lucky I got to you first," she whispered.
The ground under them trembled. They weren't safe yet.
And Kael knew—this was only the beginning.