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herself. I don’t have to come back inside the bank. I can stop this from somewhere else.
    She hugs her arms tight around herself and makes the wish by saying, “Playback.”

CHAPTER 4
    T IME RESETS TO TWENTY - THREE MINUTES EARLIER .
    Zoe is once again clutching her ill-gotten folder, back out on the street, closer to the hat and purse boutique—too cutely named Tops ’n Totes—than to the bank. It hasn’t started raining yet, though the oddness of the light—unnaturally bright and glittery as the sunlight bounces off the dark and swollen-looking clouds—should be a warning to anyone who glances up at the sky. Zoe wonders how she could ever not have sought shelter at this point. Fortunately, a lot of other people don’t have any more sense than she did.
    To free her hands, she once more tucks her folder of papers beneath her t-shirt, securing it with the waistband of her jeans. If anyone on the street is alarmed to see that flash of her midriff, they’re not saying.
    She isn’t used to asking for help and isn’t quite sure of the best approach. She suspects if she sounds hysterical, this will scare people off; too composed, and they won’t think twice about blowing her off.
    â€œExcuse me,” she says, almost grabbing for the arm of a woman passing by—but she hasn’t lost herself that far, and knows touching would be a mistake.
    Still, the woman practically recoils from Zoe. She is well dressed, probably a sales associate from one of the department stores, rushing to somewhere-or-other during her late lunch or her early-afternoon break. No doubt she has had experience withteenagers looking pretty much the way Zoe does. She has probably called store security on them.
    Zoe camouflages her attempt to catch hold of the woman by swinging her arm around—rather dramatically, admittedly—and tapping her own wrist. Kind of a silly gesture, since most people check the time by looking at their cell phones and don’t even own a wristwatch; but it gets the point across. Anyway, this woman is old enough that she probably has to ask her children when she wants to change her ringtones or add a new contact to her phone. She does have a watch, and she glances at it and, never quite stopping, never quite making eye contact with Zoe, says, “Quarter after.”
    â€œExcuse me,” Zoe repeats, calling to the woman’s back but not racing after her, which would likely cause the woman to drop dead from a heart attack. But such a nice round number sounds as though it comes from glancing at a clock face, not reporting a digital readout. “Is that the exact time? It’s important.”
    The woman is still suspicious, and even glances around as though to make sure Zoe isn’t with a gang, isn’t trying to distract her before accomplices rush in to knock her down and grab her purse.
    Is this woman always so skittish or is there something wrong with the way Zoe looks? Zoe glances down at herself, half expecting to see she’s still spattered with blood, although that is not how things work when she plays back time.
    â€œOne seventeen,” the woman says.
    â€œThank you.” Zoe tries to sound genuinely grateful, without showing the dripping sugary sarcasm she really feels.
    1:17. Well, subtract a minute for trying to get a straight answerout of her. It was probably 1:16 when Zoe arrived back here. So 1:16 (actual starting time) + 23 minutes (the fullest extent of playback) means Zoe has until 1:39 in what Zoe thinks of as flux time. Zoe has made up these terms herself, because there has never been anyone to explain these things to her. Of course not. Zoe is a freak, with a freakish talent. She suspects that in previous centuries her ability would have gotten her the reputation of being a witch. Zoe prefers to think of herself as a freak, rather than a witch. A freak who has the ability to play back life—twenty-three minutes at a