A World Without You(29)

I look first, as always, to the red thread swirling over the void of 1692. Sofía’s still there. Still alive. Trapped, but not dead.

I turn, looking at the frayed, loose strings that float past the woven timestream. And I realize, I can see the future. Or . . . many different futures. I have to sift through the threads, find the ones that pull around behind me, almost out of sight. These threads are finer, like hair or a spider’s web, barely visible. No wonder I’d never really noticed them before. Touching them leads to a sort of empty feeling, and I know instinctively that I won’t be able to travel to any of these futures. Grabbing a string that leads to the past pulls me into history; merely touching it evokes the memory in my mind. But I have to wind the slender filaments of the future around my hand so tightly that I can feel my pulse in my palm in order to see just a brief scene play in my mind, and even that fades like smoke the moment my concentration wavers.

I carefully pick out the threads involving the Berk and me, right here, right now. It’s like trying to select a single strand of sugar in cotton candy, but eventually I am able to lay out a dozen or so futures floating just above the palm of my hand. They’re all short, slender filaments that I can barely see, but I wrap them around my palm. The further out in time they go, the less clearly I can see, but I at least get an impression of the future, and in every scenario, when I help Ryan, we succeed. When I don’t, the government—or someone else—gets the USB drive and sees the videos of us using our powers.

The future gets bleaker from there.

Testing in labs. Being used as research, as a tool, as a weapon. Genetic manipulation. Shock therapy. Psychological exams. Drugs that dull the senses. Drugs that heighten them. Drugs that kill.

And behind it all, this moment. Here. Now.

All I have to do is take the drive home with me and throw it away there. No one expects it. And if I do it, then the government officials won’t see our powers. They’ll never know the truth. We’ll all be safe.

And so will the world. The bleak dystopia in which I’m a weapon or a tool—anything but a human—disappears.

The choice is simple. I have to help Ryan. I know that for sure now.

My fingers go slack, and the futures spread out on the surface of the timestream like ripples on water. Because I’ve just realized something else. Not something that I saw in any of the futures, but something I didn’t see in any of them.

Sofía.

She’s not in any of my futures. Not a single one.





CHAPTER 17




Dr. Franklin and the officials have a long meeting the next day, so our morning session is cancelled. I can only imagine what’s going on in the Doc’s office—he’s probably getting reamed not just for the missing USB drive but also for the corrupt files. As much as I hate the idea of the Doctor getting in trouble for something that Ryan did, I know I have to help. If the Doc could have seen the future, he never would have let the officials come close to the files.

I’d like to think that, anyway.

? ? ?

When the weekend rolls around, I find myself feeling a little bad for Harold, stuck alone with Ryan in the common room. Gwen and I live close enough to go home on the weekends. Ryan’s parents live in LA; they shipped him out here, and I’ve never seen them before. They pay on holidays for a fancy black car to pick Ryan up and take him to the airport for visits, but that’s it. Harold’s parents live in Brooklyn. He could go home, and on long weekends or breaks he usually does, but I think he feels safer here. He always begs the Doctor to make some excuse to his dads to keep him here at Berkshire instead of anywhere else. I think the little dude would live behind the wallpaper and become a part of the building if he could.

But I’m betting that’s about to change, and Harold will start heading home on the weekends as well. Ryan’s not the sort of guy you want to hang around with when he’s in a good mood, but the longer the officials are here, the angrier he becomes, and he seems to be focusing a lot of his rage on Harold.

I texted my mom earlier, asking to stay at the academy for another weekend, but she refused. She’s determined to have “family time,” something she never really cared about before I moved away. I don’t know what she expects from me when I graduate. I mean, I don’t think I’ll go to college, but I also don’t think I’m going to stick around.

Gwen and I wait together in the foyer for our parents to pick us up.

“I’m kind of glad to leave this time,” Gwen says, her eyes on the window. There are a few other students from different units milling around, but we’re standing off to the side. Units tend to stick together.

“Yeah, I get that,” I say. It’s not the same here without Sofía, and if it weren’t for the chance to work on my powers more, I’d rather be home too.

“It’s been super awkward.”

I nod.

“I don’t think I’m coming back next year,” she says.

I whirl around. “What? Really? Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Just . . . look around.”

I do. I see Berkshire, far more of a home to me than the house my dad’s going to drive me to. I see Gwen, a member of my unit, a part of my family. Powers are deeper than blood.

She shrugs. “This place . . . I really loved it at first. But now . . . I feel watched all the time. I feel like I can’t be myself. And, no offense, but our unit kind of sucks. You’re okay, but Ryan’s a total dick, and Harold’s practically a ghost. What’s the point? The way this school sections us off into these tiny units . . . look at all these other people.”