Free Revolution in Time (Out of Time #10) by Monique Martin

had to get to her.
    Simon tried to escape his grasp, but Jack wrapped his arms around him even more tightly.  
    “Let go of me. Elizabeth!”  
    She was alive. She had to be alive.
    Jack wouldn’t let go, but somehow Simon escaped his hold and ran toward the front of the house. He stumbled to a stop at the edge of the burning remnants. The house was gone.
    And Elizabeth was gone with it.

Chapter Eight

    D ESPERATE BEYOND THOUGHT , S IMON stepped into the flaming rubble. The heat threatened to overwhelm him, but he ignored the pain. She needed him. He would find her.
    “Elizabeth!”
    What was left of a wall engulfed in flames collapsed to his right and fell into a pile of embers and ash. It seemed to knock something loose inside him, and he looked around at the house, seeing it as it was for the first time.  
    There was no life here. Only death.
    Jack caught his arm again, and this time, Simon didn’t fight. The truth had made him numb. He could barely think the words, but once he did they rang out in endless succession. Elizabeth was dead. Elizabeth was dead. Elizabeth was dead.
    Jack led him away from the flames as another small explosion destroyed what was left of the east wall.
    Simon let him. His legs weren’t his own. His mind and body weren’t his own. This wasn’t happening.
    They stood in front of the wreckage of the house, of his life, but Simon refused to accept it.
    He repeated over and over, no, no, no .  
    Next to him he heard Wells speak in a hoarse voice. “I’m sorry.”
    Simon fell to his knees and cried out in anguish. It was a sound torn from his very soul.

    ~~~

    “I’m sorry for your loss.”
    Simon looked up at the nurse, but like everyone else, everything else, he didn’t really see her. He was lost inside his own mind, unable to latch onto anything, unable to hold a coherent thought, unable to feel the needle or the stitches or anything at all.
    The bloody bit of wood that had struck him sat alone on a metal tray. He looked down at the gash in his forearm. His skin was now pulled tightly against itself, closing the wound. All of it held together with thin, black thread. Spiky bits of thread poked out like spider legs. Sewn up tight. But nothing was holding him together on the inside. His whole body was on fire and frozen cold at the same time.
    How could she be gone?
    It couldn’t be real. He’d had nightmares like this. Surely, this was just another nightmare, and he’d wake with a start and find her next to him.
    “The doctor will be in again in a few minutes.”
    Simon nodded slowly, some sort of reflex.
    The nurse touched his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
    She had said it again. They’d all said it. The firemen, the police. But the words didn’t make sense. He could feel something just beyond his reach, like a thought in his peripheral vision, but he couldn’t grasp it. Why couldn’t he hold it?
    “A few minutes,” he said to himself although he didn’t know why.
    He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Six thirty. Was it day or night? Did it matter? How could anything possibly matter again?
    He stared at the second hand as it slowly ticked forward. The world turning outside, time passing.
    And suddenly he saw. He saw the way to save her.
    His heart lurched in his chest and his breath caught in his throat. He could go back in time and save her.
    The room, everything, came into sharp focus. He was two hours from home. Two hours from the watch. Two hours from her.
    He pushed himself off the examination table and felt the stitches strain against his muscles as they flexed. He rolled his sleeve down to cover the bandage and started for the door.
    Someone called out to him to stop, but he ignored them. Nothing would stop him now. He strode past the nurse who tried to get in his way and then ran. He ran down the corridor and out the front door. Someone shuffled their way inside as he went out.  
    He grabbed onto their arm. “A cab. Where can I find a cab?”
    The elderly man