Improbable Futures (3 page)
Read Improbable Futures Online
Authors: Kami Garcia
I force my legs to move and I block everything out, the way I’ve done more times than I can count now.
I scan their faces—hopeful, doubtful, nervous, excited—and think about what I’m going to tell them tonight. Will they win love or lose it? Get rich or go broke? Live forever or die tomorrow?
I think about the girl who disappeared behind the cart with Big John. I wish I could predict her future. It would be happy and safe and far from here.
The night blurs around me. I don’t know what I see in my glass ball or what I tell the steady stream of hopeful faces that sit across the table. Lies, I know that much. But these lies are different. They leave the marks smiling and happy, filled with dreams of improbable futures.
It doesn’t make me feel better like my mother says it will.
But it makes me feel something, even if it’s an emotion I can’t name.
I stay in the trailer long after the door closes behind the last happy customer. I stare at the crumpled bills in the bowl on the table. I grab them in handfuls, ripping them up and tossing them in the trash. The lights on the Ferris wheel go black and I sit in the semidarkness.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here when the door creaks open and I smell the whiskey. Big John is standing in the doorway looking satisfied in a shiny sharkskin shirt that makes him look even sweatier. A bottle of Jim Beam swings from his hand.
My stomach contracts and twists into a knot. I think about the girl, the way I was too scared to help her, and shame burns though me. “What do you want?”
Big John hooks a finger under his suspenders and smiles. “Came to predict your future.” He takes a swig from the bottle and points at the glass ball. “Says you’re gonna bring your ass to my trailer in ten minutes.”
The other girl wasn’t enough. With him, it’s never enough.
Something inside me snaps.
I think about the old man who won at the races and the woman in the red sweater. Last night, I predicted their futures and they came true. Maybe it was a coincidence. But if there is one thing I’ve learned in the halls of this dirty school without walls, it’s how to play the odds.
“My turn.” I stare at the cheap glass ball on the table and back at his vicious face—evil and sadistic and everything wrong with the world. “Fate will deal you a fair hand.”
Big John laughs, phlegm rattling in his chest. “You’re damn right it will. Cash out and I’ll see you in ten—” He looks at his watch. “No—nine minutes.”
The door slams behind him and I collect the shredded money in my hands. Time to cash out. I’m putting it in my pocket when I hear someone shout.
I know that voice. I rush to the door, bells jingling at my ankles.
“You’ve got it all wrong!” Big John shouts. He’s holding his hands up to shield himself, the way I have so many times.
A man stands a few yards away, holding a hunting rifle. “You filthy son of a bitch. My daughter told me what you did!”
Carnies come out of their trailers, but no one moves. Even Leeds just stands there with his sleeves rolled up.
“It’s a misunderstanding,” Big John says.
The girl’s father doesn’t respond. He keeps the rifle pointed at Big John as if he can see the truth. “Tell ’em that in hell.”
I don’t see the bullet, but I hear the round explode from the gun. My body tenses for a split second and Big John falls in the dirt.
The man with the rifle spits on the ground and walks away.
Everyone rushes toward the place Big John’s body lies motionless. I don’t even recognize the faces as I push my way through the crowd.
“Ilana, you don’t want to see this.”
But I do.
I step through and I see him. The monster from my nightmares, staring up at a sky he will never see again.
It’s something I’ve wished for a thousand times. But I never thought I would see it happen, or that I would be the one to do it. The realization spreads through me slowly like it’s stretching after a long nap.
I did this, even if I wasn’t the one holding the gun.
I turn and start walking. I pass the trailer I share with my mom. The bells on my skirt are ringing again. I bend down and rip them off one at a time. I keep walking until the carnival is somewhere behind me and I can see the highway in front of me. I won’t stop until I can see my future.
• ♦ •
The Lovely Reckless
(Coming Fall 2016)
Beautiful Creatures Novels
Dream Dark
(E-Novella)
The Mortal Heart
(E-Novella)
The Seer's Spread
(E-Novella)
Dangerous Dream
(E-Novella)
Anthologies
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kami Garcia is the #1
New York Times, USA Today
& international bestselling coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures & Dangerous Creatures Novels and author of the instant
New York Times
bestseller and Bram Stoker Award nominated novel UNBREAKABLE and the sequel UNMARKED, in the Legion Series. Her forthcoming novel THE LOVELY RECKLESS releases in fall 2016. BEAUTIFUL CREATURES has been published in 50 countries and translated in 39 languages, and the film
Beautiful Creatures
released in theaters in 2013, from Warner Brothers.
Kami is very superstitious, and when she isn’t writing, she can usually be found watching disaster movies or
Supernatural
, listening to Soundgarden, or drinking Diet Coke. She lives in Maryland with her family, and their dogs Spike and Oz (named after characters from
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
). Learn more about Kami and her books at
www.KamiGarcia.com
, on Twitter:
kamigarcia
, Facebook:
KamiGarciaYA
& Pinterest:
kamigarcia
.
