Future Threat

9

“Something wrong?” I ask. Why is he here instead of a nurse, anyway?

“Not at all.” He slaps the blood pressure cuff on my arm, and I barely flinch this time. After he gets the reading, he checks my heartbeat with his stethoscope and ticks things off on his chart.

“Have you noticed any memory loss since we last saw you?” he asks.

“No.”

“What about any sort of physical pain or discomfort?”

“No.”

“Very good.”

I expect more questions, like about vision or hearing loss, but he turns toward the counter, where needles and vials are waiting to draw my blood. He instructs me to hold out my forearm and make a fist so he can reach the vein at my inside elbow, then rubs the area with alcohol. I brace myself for the prick of the needle, for the blood to flow out of me, but instead he reaches past the vials and grabs a nearby syringe full of milky-white liquid. My gut screams again that this is wrong, wrong, wrong. “What—”

He stabs the syringe into my arm and injects me before I can react. Pain shoots up my veins with the invading liquid, and I push him back with a hard shove. I jump to my feet and yank the syringe out, tossing it on the floor. “What was that?”

He stands back and watches me with narrow eyes. The world seems to go hazy.

Oh my God, what has he done? What did he inject me with?

What is really going on here?

I turn to the door, reaching for the knob, but my fingers are numb. My knees weaken. The room spins.

And then, darkness.

When my eyes open, I’m on the floor, palms pressed into concrete, legs sprawled at an awkward angle. Someone groans to my right. I blink, struggling to focus, trying to figure out where I am and what the hell is going on.

The needle. Dr. Kapur. Oh God.

I try to get up quickly, but my head throbs and I’m so tired, so weak. I crumble back to the floor and focus on breathing, willing strength into my limbs. I need to pull myself together as fast as possible so I can get out of here. Wherever here is.

“Elena,” Adam says beside me, his voice low and rough. He sounds as dazed as I am. I reach toward him, groping around until I find his arm, his hand. As soon as my fingers tangle with his, I feel stronger. Where are we? What have they done to us?

I slowly sit up, and my vision begins to clear. Adam’s on my right; Chris is on my left. Chris is still out cold, but Adam’s awake, and he gazes at our surroundings in horror.

We’re in a small metal dome, big enough for five people to stand in and not much more than that. It’s a place I recognize, although I really wish I didn’t.

We’re inside the accelerator—the machine that sent us to the future.

I stagger to my feet, and something between a choke and a scream escapes my throat. No, God, no. Why are we in here again? How?

The room seems to tilt and grow darker. Panic squeezes my throat. I can’t stop the flashbacks from flooding my mind, and I press my palms into my eyes, trying to block it all out. The accelerator. The future. Rain and police and adrenaline-fueled escapes. Cold, dead hands and blood dripping into water. Gunshots and salty air and oh God oh God oh God, this can’t be happening again, it can’t it can’t it can’t.

I rush to the door and try to open it, but it’s locked. Adam’s behind me a second later. Our fists pound on the door and we both yell, but no one answers. Our words are incoherent, our voices strained, our pleas desperate, but they’re not enough to get a response.

I press my back against the door and sink to the floor, choking on a dry heave. I can’t breathe. Tears leak from my eyes. Adam keeps pounding on the door, and the banging echoes around us: clank clank clank.

That’s when I notice I’m wearing different clothes. My T-shirt and jeans are gone, replaced with a black jacket and tank top, cargo pants, and combat boots. Adam and Chris are wearing clothes similar to mine. That means someone undressed us while we were unconscious.

I cover my mouth but still gag from the repulsion at being so violated, so helpless. They knocked us out, changed our clothes, and locked us inside here against our will. Was everything they said about possible symptoms and complications a lie, just to get us in here again?

I drop my head between my knees and focus on breathing, like the therapist taught me, but I can’t stop dry heaving. What I really want is to punch something. Someone.

Either the sound of Adam banging on the door or my panicked noises finally wake Chris. I see it the moment he realizes where we are, when he discovers what they’ve done to us. When it hits him what they’re going to do to us.

He lets out a primal yell and charges the door, like a football player rushing toward the goal, but all he does is crash into the metal with a heavy thud. There’s no way out. We’re trapped.

My head clears of the leftover fog from whatever they drugged me with, and it really hits me: they locked us in here for a reason. They’re sending us to the future again.

Vincent Sharp’s voice is broadcast around us, echoing through the dome. “Please relax. We don’t want you to injure yourselves.”

“What have you done?” I force myself to my feet and spin around, looking everywhere, addressing the cameras that must be watching us. We have no way of seeing out, but they can see us. I’m sure of it. “Why have you locked us in here?”

“We need your help,” Vincent says.

“Hell no.” Chris practically spits the words, his fists clenched at his side. “No f*****g way.”

“Help with what?” Adam asks, his voice steady somehow.

There’s no answer at first, only silence, but then the words boom through the metal walls. “We need you to return to the future.”