Future Shock (20 page)

But I just raise an eyebrow and wait.

She purses her lips and sits back in her chair, considering. “What can I do to help?”

I collect the papers off the table and shove them in my bag. “I’ve already emailed copies of these reports to a friend. If something happens to me, she’ll go public with them. If something happens to the others, I’ll do the same. Aether’s experiments and the effects of future shock—and how they want to use little kids next—will be all over the Internet. But if Aether leaves us alone, this will never get out. We’ll keep it a secret if you let us live our lives in peace.”

“I see…” She drums her fingers against the table. “I find it hard to believe Aether would have you killed, but I’ll make sure you’re safe from them. I guarantee they’ll leave you all alone—but in return, I want to know
everything
that happened to you in the future.”

“If we make it out of this alive, I’ll tell you everything, I swear.”

“Good.” She stands up and sets her hand on my arm. “Elena, you don’t need to worry. Nothing is going to happen to you or your friends. I promise.”

It’s hard to tell if she believes me or if she’s just telling me what I want to hear. Maybe she thinks I’m suffering the paranoia side effect of future shock. Either way, I believe she’ll honestly try to help us and will do everything she can to keep us safe. That’s no guarantee we’ll live past tomorrow, but it’s the best I can do.

Friday

I don’t go to school the next day. I plead to Mrs. Robertson that I’m sick and show her my bandaged ribs, and she takes pity on me and lets me stay in bed. I sleep for hours, longer than I have in years. Making up for lost time, I suppose.

When I wake, it’s already 1:00 p.m. Katie’s at school, so I’m alone in our room. I pack a bag, throwing my meager belongings into it. It’s strange, being back in my bedroom after everything I’ve lived through. It feels too normal and I…am not.

My mind keeps replaying everything that happened yesterday. I can’t stop thinking about the future, and how in a few hours I’ll be dead—or not. By coming back to the present, did I kill the others and myself? Did I change the future and save our lives when I took the evidence to Lynne? Or was this how it happened all along, in one never-ending loop?

Did we change our fate? Or did we make it happen?

Either way, I’m not going to sit around and let death find me. I grab my bag and sneak out of the house.

First, I go to a nearby bank and open a checking account—I never needed one before today. They deposit my check from Aether and I ask for $5,000 in cash from the teller. It barely makes a dent in all the money in my account.

I should feel free now. I don’t have to worry about what will happen after I turn eighteen. I can go to college, find a place to live. My future looks bright for the first time in my life, but I still feel like I shouldn’t be here in the present. And thinking of how I almost stayed in the future brings back memories of Adam and how he betrayed us. A part of me wishes I could talk to him. A part of me wants to strangle him.

I take a bus downtown to Union Station. The crowd surges around me as I check the train times on the screen. This is the last part of my plan to keep us all alive. If I’m gone, I can’t kill anyone. If I disappear, Aether won’t be able to find me. And since they know I have evidence against them, they won’t kill the others—not unless they want me to go public with it.

I buy a ticket to New Orleans, the farthest city available. I check my watch. Thirteen minutes until the train arrives. Thirty-six minutes until the window for Trent’s death begins. He’s supposed to be killed sometime between 3:00 and 4:30 p.m. But I’ve done everything I could to make sure we’ll all be safe.
We’re not going to die
, I tell myself over and over.

But I can’t help feeling like I missed something, like I forgot something, some piece of the puzzle, some part of the equation. But that’s impossible. I never forget anything. Everything is stored away in my head. I just can’t see how it all fits together.

Maybe I can text Trent, tell him to be careful or to get out of town, just in case. But as I grab my phone I realize I don’t have his number. I don’t even know if he
has
a phone.

But I remember the location where he was killed. I could go there, make sure he’s still alive…

No, I have to get on this train. It’s the only way to guarantee I won’t kill the others. The only way I’ll know for sure that I’ll be alive tomorrow.

But with each passing minute the feeling that something’s wrong grows. It gnaws at me, itching underneath my skin, begging me to scratch at it. My gut tells me none of us are safe, and I can’t ignore it.

The train arrives, but I can’t get on. I have to know if Trent is okay. Even if it might lead to my own death.

I bolt out of the station and run to the nearest bus stop, but the bus isn’t there yet. I pace back and forth under the hot, relentless sun. The future was so cold and wet that I forgot we were having a heat wave in the present.

Finally, the bus arrives. I jump inside, swipe my pass, and rush to the back. It takes about a million years for everyone to load onto the bus, and then we’re moving, but we’re still too slow. I grip the back of the seat in front of me, willing the bus to go faster, but there’s traffic. Of course there’s traffic; we’re in LA.

It’s a long ride to Trent’s part of the city. I keep muttering, “C’mon, c’mon.” People around me give me looks and move to different seats. They probably think I’m crazy or looking to pick a fight. I check the map on my phone, memorizing the route I need to take as soon as I get off. I just pray I’m not too late.

We finally reach my stop, and I jump out the side door and race down the street. I don’t know this area, but the map is burned into my mind and I remember exactly where to go. Turn right here. Then left there. My ankle and side begin to throb, but adrenaline and fear keep me going. I have to make sure Trent is safe before I can get on with my life. I have to make sure the future we saw isn’t starting.

By the time I find the address, sweat has soaked through my tank top and my entire body aches. A chain-link fence surrounds a rundown building covered in graffiti. I can’t tell if it used to be an apartment or something else, but it’s clearly abandoned now. I find a gap in the fence to duck through and slowly walk to the entrance, eyes darting around for a sign of anything suspicious.

The front door is unlocked. It creaks open, and the room inside is dark, with only pinpricks of light bursting through the boarded-up windows. A musty old smell fills my nose.

“Trent?” I call out from the doorway. Shivers creep up my spine despite the heat. There could be someone hiding inside, watching me, or a dead body at my feet, and I wouldn’t know it.

I turn on my phone’s flashlight and wave it around. The place is empty and gutted, just wooden planks and chipped pieces of tile, with bits of plaster and foam scattered around the floor. My heart pounds as I scan the space, but I don’t see any dead bodies or any movement.

“Trent?” I take a step forward, the floor groaning under my weight. A thick layer of dust and cobwebs hangs over everything, and I imagine there must be rats and spiders and God knows what else living here. But I don’t see any sign of Trent. Maybe this isn’t the place.

I creep farther inside and swing the light—and see a shape in the corner. A lump.

I hold my breath, terrified of what I might be looking at, but it’s just a pile of blankets surrounded by trash. But as I get closer, I realize it’s not trash. It’s clothes and library books and empty packs of cigarettes. Something shiny and metallic catches the light from within the blankets. I bend down and pick it up. Trent’s silver lighter.

This is the place. Trent must be squatting here—but where is he? I can’t imagine he’d leave his lighter behind, not when he played with it constantly. This is wrong, all wrong. I shouldn’t be here. I need to get the hell out of this place, but I have to know what happened to Trent. I have to know he’s okay.

A creak behind me makes me drop the lighter and spin around, heart pounding. I wave the flashlight all over the place but don’t see anything in the darkness. I do another sweep, just to be sure.

The light flashes over a tiny, dark spot on the wall across from me that seems out of place somehow. I inch closer, both drawn to the spot and repulsed by it. As I move my light, I see more tiny spots across the wall…and some of them are dripping.

My mind screams,
No, no, no
, but I keep moving the light down, following the trail to a puddle of inky wet darkness at my feet.

I jump back, crying out. It’s blood; it has to be. Panic makes my legs move, and then I’m in front of the building on the other side of the fence—with no idea how I got there. I bend over, clutching my side and trying not to vomit on my shoes. I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t stop shaking.

Because even though there was no body, I know,
I know
in my heart that Trent is dead.

The dumpster is a few blocks away, behind a Thai restaurant. I remember the location from the reports in Future-Adam’s safe. Maybe I should have come here first, but I have to believe that Trent is still alive. I have to hang on to the shred of hope that his body won’t be in the dumpster or that he’ll be injured and not dead, and I can somehow still save him. Otherwise it will all be for nothing.

And I’m not ready to give up yet.

I drag over a wooden crate and stand on it to lift off the dumpster’s cover. It hits the back of the restaurant with a loud
bang
, and the smell assaults my nose: trash, rotten food, and something else I don’t want to identify. For a second I keep my eyes closed, unable to look. Because if I look and see what I know will be in there, then it will be real.

I open my eyes. At first I don’t see anything unusual. Trash bags, discarded boxes and containers, moldy fruit.

But then I see it. A pale hand.

I choke back a sob and lean into the dumpster to shove trash out of the way with my bare hands. I barely even notice how disgusting it is. I find Trent’s blond hair and wrap my arms around his chest to pull him free. His head flops to the side, and there’s blood all over his clothes, and his skin is weird, and I know he’s gone, but I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—

“Hey, what are you doing?” a voice yells. I jerk up, dropping Trent’s body back into the dumpster. A guy in a white apron stands at the back door of the restaurant, glaring at me.

“I-I, um…” I stumble to the ground, tripping on the edge of the crate. I can’t explain this, can’t even comprehend what is happening right now, but I know how this must look.

I run.

When my head clears, I’m leaning against a wall, clutching my side and gasping for air. Sweat drips from my forehead, mixing with the tears streaking down my face. Tremors of pain and grief shoot through me as I picture Trent’s lifeless body, dumped with the trash. I remember how he cooked for us and bargained for our IDs with his last pack of cigarettes. How he saved me from the guard in Aether’s lobby. I think of how he wanted a second chance to turn his life around. Now that chance has been stolen from him.

Why didn’t he run? Why didn’t he stay away from the place where he knew he would be killed?

Except…he didn’t know. He knew the approximate time of his death and where his body was found and how he died, but he didn’t see the crime scene photos or read the reports. He didn’t know the specifics. None of them did. I’m the only one who knew all the details of their murders.

I’ve made a terrible mistake. I should have told them everything. If I had been honest with them, maybe Trent would be alive now.

I may not have pulled the trigger, but his death is my fault.

But I still have a chance to stop the other murders. I consider calling the police, but they’ll think I did it or want to take me in for questioning—especially after that guy saw me with Trent’s body. Maybe Lynne can help me if I tell her what’s going on. She promised me we’d be safe, but Trent is dead, so obviously that was a big, fat lie.

My one comfort is that I know now I’m not the killer.

My heart refuses to believe Adam would shoot Trent and leave his body in a dumpster. But my head says I can’t trust him either, even though I don’t think he’s a murderer.

Aether gave us the guns in our backpacks—it
must
be them, trying to get rid of us and set me up as the murderer. Either Lynne failed to help us, or she lied to me and is in on it. Maybe, by trying to blackmail Aether, I’m the reason we’re being killed—although it would make more sense for them to just kill me then.

Oh God, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if anything I’ve done has changed the future, or only made it worse. Or if it’s impossible to change our fate at all. Maybe all we can do is let fate carry us toward our grim destiny.

No. Screw that. I grab my phone and dial Aether’s number with trembling fingers and ask for Lynne.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist says. “She’s out of the office at the moment. Can I take a message?”

“No, just…tell her to call me.”

Damn. What else can I do? I don’t have Zoe or Chris’s number—but I do remember Chris saying he works for Downey Automotive. I call the shop, but some other guy answers. When I ask for Chris he puts me on hold for a good five minutes then says Chris isn’t there. I get the feeling he’s lying, but I give him my number and tell him it’s urgent.

I doubt Chris will call me. Not if he thinks there’s a chance I might be the killer. My only choice is to find Zoe. I know that by going to the crime scenes I might be helping them frame me for these murders, but I push off the wall and start toward the bus stop anyway. Because if Trent is dead, then we haven’t changed the future and we’re all going to die in the next few hours. And Zoe is next.

I leap off the bus and dash down the street toward the address memorized in my head. It’s like déjà vu, except the sun is lower and the neighborhood is nicer and there are tears in my eyes that won’t fall, not yet, because I refuse to believe Zoe’s already dead.

It took me two different buses to get to the area where Zoe’s girlfriend lives. I check my watch as I near the boxy, gray apartment building—5:46 p.m., and the police report said she died sometime between four thirty and six. I might still have time.

I circle the building until I find the right unit, then stand in front of the door listening, afraid to do anything else. I don’t want to see what’s inside, because a part of me already knows what I’ll find.

Finally, I knock. No answer.

I wait a moment and then knock again, harder. Still nothing. Why isn’t she answering? Is she already—?

“Zoe?” I yell through the door, pounding on it with my fists.

My inner voice is telling me to run, yelling that I’m setting myself up, but I don’t know what else to do. If there’s a chance Zoe is alive in there I have to try to save her.

I check the doorknob, using my shirt so I don’t leave fingerprints this time. It opens easily—the door isn’t locked.

“Zoe?” I step inside a small studio apartment with drab gray carpet. There’s a queen-size bed with a yellow comforter, a small TV, and a desk. Art decorates the walls, plastering them with sketches, paintings, charcoal drawings. I recognize it as Zoe’s work.

But the place has been trashed—drawers and cabinets open everywhere, clothes thrown across the floor, a broken lamp in the corner. Whoever was here must have been looking for something, but they’re already gone.