Page 32

I bear my schedule over the next few days with a numbness that doesn’t go unnoticed.

Sara, Connor, and Matthew try to cheer me up, but I’m a lost cause with Daniel’s strange tirade still haunting me.

My mother’s secret was powerful enough to sever my relationship with him, and I still don’t know what it is.

How can he doubt my feelings for him? That’s the only thing I’ve been sure of since the beginning.

Instructions for something or other echo around me for the group activity when Clausen stalks toward me with disturbing urgency.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re needed immediately,” he says, taking my arm.

“What’s wrong?” I feel the gym’s collective eye as Clausen leads me away at a brisk pace.

“We don’t have time to mince words. Despite your latest conflict with Daniel, we need you to be the bigger person right now.”

Ice spreads through me, slivers of panic. “What’s going on?”

“Hurry! He’s in trouble.”

I jog to keep up down the main hall, past the dining room, past the library. I haven’t been to this remote part of the building, not since my initial tour because—my blood goes cold. I’ve never been sick.

“No,” I whisper.

The infirmary. No! Not now. Not after everything we’ve been through.

Daniel’s odd behavior yesterday spirals into sharp focus, and I shift into a run when the medical wing comes into view. Bursting through the double doors, I begin frantically searching the bays and beds. “Daniel! Where is he? Daniel!”

Clausen catches up to me and grabs my arms. “You need to calm down first. We need you calm.”

I blink back my terror and force a nod. Do I look calm? I feel like a walking cyclone when he leads me to an isolated suite at the end of the wing. Already shaking, I stumble against the door when I see him.

Daniel is motionless on the bed, his skin the color of death. A few staff members hover around his body, staring numbly.

“You need to fix this,” Clausen says, and I turn on him.

“What are you talking about? What could I possibly do?”

I rush to the bed and take his limp hand. Nothing. A black empty void that nearly kills me.

“Why aren’t you doing anything? Why are you all just standing there?” I sob. I can’t breathe, can’t think, as the terrifying answer assaults my brain. They aren’t doing anything because there’s nothing to do.

We’re too late.

Tears burn down my cheeks as I collapse beside him. I want to scream, plead, punch him all at once, but nothing can release the storm battering my insides. The longer we’re suspended in silence, the more I become aware of their perplexing expectations.

“What is it?” I bark through my tears. They stare, and I straighten. “I can only see the past and future. Believe me, I’d give my life to save him right now, but what good would my abilities do? I can’t even see anything when someone is unconscious—let alone, dead.”

“He’s not dead. Yet.” Clausen takes my arms and forces me to face him. “There’s something you need to know. We haven’t told you, because you weren’t ready. Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice anymore. Daniel made sure of that.”

“What are you talking about?” My voice is barely audible.

Clausen softens, hesitating before he continues with a reverent tone. “You don’t see the future, Rebecca. You create it.”

Air drains from my lungs as I stagger backwards. “No.” I shake my head. Just, no.

“It’s a hard truth to hear like this, and we’ll spend as much time as you need to work through it later, but for now you have to trust me. Please, Rebecca. Choose his future! It might already be too late.”

My hands tremble, and I have to grip the bed frame for support.

“Why do you think we recruited you so heavily?” he continues. “Why do you think we’ve pushed and pulled you since you arrived? Your gifts are astronomical in their potential. If anyone needed to learn to control them, it was you. Why do you think your mother was so afraid of you?”

“No! I would have known before now. She would have told me!”

“Really? Do you think she wanted you to know you had that kind of power? At least if you didn’t know, your imagined futures were rare and accidental. You see the past and use your perceptions to shape the future. Your fantasy becomes their reality.”

Daniel’s heated speech comes flooding back. This is the secret he thought I hid from him, maybe even planned to use against him in my own sick game. But he’d been wrong for possibly the first time in his life. Then, a more unspeakable thought grips me.

Maybe this isn’t a coincidence at all. Maybe in his own twisted way he arranged his overdose to be a final blow to Clausen’s plans.

After all, who knew when I would have learned the truth about my abilities?

Maybe never. Maybe he’d known they would keep the awful secret and use me like they used him for most of his life.

With his last act, Daniel forced their hand one final time, thwarting them even in his death.

It’s definitely more in line with everything I’ve learned about him than the sudden bout of ignorance I originally suspected.

Maybe our last conversation wasn’t a fight, but a goodbye the only way he knew how.

My heart shatters, and I kneel beside him again, gripping his hand and studying his still features.

I close my eyes and search for any sign of him, however faint.

Tears blur my eyes and I hear myself pleading in the distance, begging him to come back.

But there’s only darkness in my here and now.

The frustrating, terrifying void of his absence.

Seconds that feel like hours.

Air that feels like cement.

I’m completely lost and sharply focused on one objective all at once.

Until—a flicker.

I gasp and hold tighter, concentrating with every fiber of my being. Another flash, then another. And then… I cry out and fall back, weak from the strain.

“What is it?” Clausen asks. “Did you see something?”

I nod through my tears, unable to speak. I still don’t know if I can believe what Clausen just said about my abilities, but for now I’ll accept anything if it means seeing Daniel alive again.

“Yes, I saw something,” I whisper.

Clausen blinks, moisture collecting at the corners of his eyes. “What was it? The future? He’s alive?”

I nod. “It wasn’t a clear vision,” I lie, “but it was definitely the future.”

A sigh lifts from the room, and a nurse reads the monitors.

“He’s stable,” he says, and the beautiful murmur of relief echoes around us. “We’ll keep a close eye on him. This is incredible.”

Incredible? No. Horrifying. My worst nightmare.

I manage to steady myself enough to return to Daniel’s side. “May I stay with him?”

Clausen rests his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “You did well. Thank you, Rebecca. Take as much time as you want.” He motions to the others who follow him from the room as soon as they complete their tasks.

Once Daniel and I are alone, I press his hand to my lips. I don’t need visions to determine the details about his attempt. He overdosed. Of course he did. They made him a drug-addict, and he’s lived under the label for half his life. It only makes sense that he’d give them the ending they deserved.

But something prevented his final victory.

I can’t believe it was me, and I wonder if he’ll be forgiving or vindictive when he wakes from his hard-fought death.

He failed again. No doubt the life that follows will be even more unbearable to him as his captors take extreme measures to protect their mission’s heartbeat.

But they don’t know—he doesn’t know—what I saw in that fleeting moment. Did I create it?

Chills run down my spine, and I trace the tattoos on his arm, hoping for sleep to take me also.

Daniel flinches.

At first I think I bumped his arm after drifting off, but it moves again.

“Daniel?”

Nothing, and I lean over him, willing him to wake up.

I’m afraid to touch him if he’s awake, however, terrified of possibilities I still can’t accept.

After another moment, his eyelids flutter open and he squints into the light.

My heart soars when he scans the sterile room, and I clasp my hands to keep from smothering him.

“Daniel? It’s Rebecca.”

His gaze flickers to me, confusion spreading over his face—and then horror.

“No. No!” He pounds his fist into the bed, and I jump back. “I’m not dead! Why am I not dead?”

Medical staff rush into the room as Daniel continues his outburst. “Let me go! No!” He twists and flails against the nurses while they work to restrain him.

“We have to sedate him!”

“We can’t. He just overdosed on narcotics!”

“Get Dr. Flores!”

Daniel pulls away from one of them and rips the IV from his hand. Blood leaks from the wound while they fight to regain their hold.

“Let me go! I’m supposed to be dead! What have you done? You don’t know what you’ve done!”

What had I done? I don’t know, but I don’t regret it. How can I? I will never apologize for saving his life. Never.

“Get her out of here!” a nurse shouts.

Hands grasp my arms, supporting me as much as leading me away. Tears burn down my cheeks and my limbs feel stiff as I stumble toward the exit to the soundtrack of Daniel’s cries.

“That must have been very confusing for you,” Clausen says once we’re in his office.

I barely hear him. “It’s not true. It can’t be.”

I’m still shaking. Still fighting for air.

“What can’t be true, my dear?”

“I can affect the future? How can you even think that’s possible?”

Clausen sighs. “I’m sorry it happened this way, but we didn’t have a choice. We don’t know for sure, of course, but your mother believes it’s true. That’s the main reason you’re here. We’d like to explore that possibility and make an empirical observation. Wouldn’t you like to know?”

I cover my face and shake my head. No wonder she always hated my imagination. “How could you even tell the difference between me seeing something and causing something?”