Free Sable Book 1 of Chaos Time (Chaos Time Series) by Marie Hall

bulbs would die. Her night vision had been garbage. But not anymore.
    He didn’t seem happy when he said, “yeah.”
    She had a past, so did he. Wasn’t her place to pry. So she switched subjects. “So Dragden?”
    “Right.” He shook himself, as if snapping out of a trance. “Last time we fought him, we failed.” He shoved his fingers through his hair, obviously still agitated by it.
    “So what makes you think we can get it right this time?”
    His jaw set with grim determination and his look brooked no argument when he said, “because we don’t have a choice. You saw what he did, the end result of his unchecked madness. Everyone’s gone. I can’t have that.”
    Not that she didn’t care. Because obviously she was involved in that everyone category but... “Why me? What could I do for you?”
    Shadow crossed his face and he glanced down at his feet. “Your memories.”
    But there was more, he’d looked down, but not quick enough, because she’d read the truth in his eyes. He’d shoved up a wall, threw closed a gate and padlocked it for safe measure. There was a secret just out of reach, something he was being careful to keep hidden from her.
    “What aren’t you telling me?”
    He bit his lip. “I play a very dangerous game, Sable. Time hopping is no joke. With one wrong word, one wrong move I can literally change everything. Undo it all. I can’t run that risk. I can only tell you so much and hope, pray,” his look searched hers pleadingly, “that you will trust me. That you will help us.”
    “Help us what?”
    “Overthrow Dragden.”
    “How?” Her impatience flared. She’d never liked feeling clueless and this conversation wasn’t helping matters. She knew he wanted to move things along, but really who could blame her reluctance? Life was supposed to follow a certain set of rules. You’re born, you live, and then you die. End of story. This...this wasn’t part of the plan.
    “There’re hot spots in time. Places where power runs deeper than any ocean trench. Places where if tapped can increase your power to exponential levels. God like, even. Those places must be destroyed.”
    “If you know all that, shouldn’t it be a simple matter for you to get in, take care of it and walk out? I mean you’ve got mad ninja skills. Use ‘em.”
    “You’ve been locked up in a ward for how long?” He chuckled. “How is your modern slang so good?”
    Shrugging with a bitter twist to her lips, she said, “The institute doped us up with pills until we became zombies then parked our asses in front of the TV. There wasn’t much else to do there other than watch too much crappy reality TV. But,” she waved her hand because she didn’t want to talk about Fairfield anymore, that was in her past and that’s where it would remain, “why aren’t you using that time jumping thing to just take them out?”
    His sigh was bitter with regret. “I wish I could. But these places are guarded by Lord’s.”
    She lifted a brow, waiting for further explaination.
    “Zealot’s, Dragden worshippers and fanatics. Corrupt creations that have powers beyond one man’s abilities. We’d all need to fight as one to bring them down and then once we do, we’d have to locate the power source, which from what I’ve learned are not easy to destroy.”
    She sat with her back against the tree, needing the contact and rubbed her brow. “So why didn’t we win the first time? It doesn’t sound all that complicated.”
    He tipped his head up, studying the canopy of sky. “I didn’t know about the sources then. We tried to fight Dragden head on, obviously a mistake.”
    “How did you find out about the sources?”
    He looked at her, his mouth set in a straight line. “You. You told me, right before you died.”
    Again she had the nagging feeling that he was keeping stuff from her. What was he hiding? She squeezed her eyes shut, pointless to ask him she knew, he wouldn’t tell her.
    “Don’t you think he’ll know