A World Without You(79)

? ? ?

As soon as Ryan is out of the library, I waste no time in calling up the timestream. For a moment, I’m worried it won’t work.

But it’s there. All of time, laid out before me, strings floating atop a river, tangling and weaving together into beautiful chaos. I work hurriedly, finding a date when I can see Sofía in the past. The red string connecting me to Sofía is as slender as a hair, but it cuts my finger like a razor when I touch it. I snatch my hand back, sucking on the blood springing up.

I grab the string again, with my whole hand, not just wrapping my finger around it. It slices into me, and I grit my teeth against the pain.

I have to do this.

I feel my bones crunch, squeezed together by the red string as I wind it around my palm. Blood makes my hand slick and warm. I can’t let go.

I can’t let go.

The pain disappears. I look down and the string is gone, along with the blood.

Sofía stands in front of me.

“Hi,” I say.

She smiles, but the happiness doesn’t reach her eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asks.

“I had to see you.”

“You have to go.”

I shake my head, crossing the short distance between her and me. “No,” I say.

“You have to.”

I want to tell her everything, but time won’t let me. So I just say, “Things are bad right now.”

“You’ve been coming to me in the past,” Sofía says. “I figure something is wrong with the future—I mean, the present. Your present. Am I right?”

I nod.

“And I’m not there to help you.”

I nod again. I expect time to snap me back at any minute, but it doesn’t. We’re both still here. “I was afraid,” I say tentatively, still testing the boundaries of time.

“Of what?”

“That my powers weren’t real.”

For a brief second, everything wavers. Colors shift and swirl in and out of one another. Everything stutters . . . except for Sofía. She is still in front of me, real and vivid and true.

She reaches up and puts the flats of her hands against the sides of my face. Her skin is cool and calming. “But Bo,” she says, “what if I’m not real? What if none of this is real?”

“You’re the only thing I’m certain of,” I whisper.

She opens her mouth, but instead of words, water pours out. It dribbles down her chin, a waterfall over her neck, rivulets across her chest. I reach out and grab her, but my fingers puncture her arm as if her skin were a water balloon, bright blue liquid that stinks of chlorine erupting from her body. “Sofía!” I cry, reaching for her again. My hand brushes against her hair, and every dark brown strand turns invisible, then reflective, like the surface of a pool. Her body grows translucent, liquid, melting away until there’s nothing left of her but a puddle at my feet.

? ? ?

Ryan comes to get me in my bedroom an hour after lights-out. I don’t know how he gets around the door locks, but he does. Further proof that the locks—like the iron bars—are just part of his illusion.

“Ready?” Ryan asks in a low voice.

I stare at the water stain on my floor, its edges creating an odd, circular shape in the hardwood.

I nod my head.

The door to Dr. Franklin’s office is locked, but Ryan somehow got his hands on a key. We creep into the darkened room.

It looks strange here without the Doctor, without people at all. The chairs are shadowed tombstones, all circled up around an empty space, signifying nothing.

Ryan turns on the lights.

“We’re looking for permanent records. The Doctor’s notes. Anything that could incriminate me or land me in a worse school when this one closes.”

“Which notes?” I move over to Dr. Franklin’s desk, where a pile of papers sits in disarray. I’m not really paying attention to Ryan. I’m here for my own reasons. I need proof. After seeing Sofía melt away, I have to know what reality is—outside of the illusion Ryan has created. I don’t want to live a lie . . . but I also don’t want to live in a world without her.

I just want the truth. Maybe I can find that here.

Ryan shrugs. “I’ll know what I’m looking for when I see it. All schools keep records. What I need is a clean start.” He grins maliciously. “So if you see something with my name on it, tell me. I can’t have a bad record if I don’t have a record at all.”

When I look out the window, sunlight glitters for a second. I blink, and the moon replaces it. All around me, the timestream is still cracking. I need help. I just don’t know who can help me.

I sit down at the Doc’s desk, riffling through the papers there. They’re all notes written in his nearly illegible handwriting. Words I don’t know are circled or crossed through.

Water drips onto the paper.

I look up. Ryan has moved on to the second drawer of the Doc’s filing cabinet, scanning its contents quickly. But Carlos Estrada stands across from me, pointing down at one of Dr. Franklin’s desk drawers.

I bend down, yanking on the heavy drawer. It’s full of more files, and I almost slam it shut again. But then I see my name. And Ryan’s name. And Gwen’s and Harold’s. My hand shakes, and I notice that only one file is red, a bright swath of color hidden among the manila folders.