“Yeah. You said you overheard Dr. Kapur telling Dr. Walters they should ‘purge us’ before we died. You said you’d help us stop them.”
“Of course I’ll help you. But what…what was I like? Did you see my daughter by any chance?”
“You felt guilty about what happened to us. About not being able to stop our deaths. And your daughter is married with two kids. She’s a pediatrician.” I pause. I should tell her about her own death, but this might be my one bargaining chip. “I promise to tell you more once I know we’re safe…including how you died.”
She gasps. “I died? While you were in the future?”
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.