Future Threat

2

And at the moment, the flashbacks are the least of my problems.

The black car hovers in my rearview mirror, dark and dangerous. As I pull away from the curb, it follows. I could try to lose it, but what’s the point? They know where I live. They know where I go to school. They can come for me anytime they want, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop them.

The car quits following me two blocks from the tattoo parlor, but I don’t feel safe until I’m inside my apartment with the door locked behind me. Even then, it’s only the illusion of safety. Today they let me go, but I know it’s just a matter of time before they come for me.

I toss my keys onto the table in the entry, drop my bag on the hardwood floor, and collapse onto the soft, gray couch in my living room.

I love those words. My living room.

After years of being in foster care, moving from place to place all the time, and having zero control over where I lived, it’s the greatest feeling in the world to finally have a home of my own. One that I chose.

It’s nothing special, just a small one-bedroom apartment I’m renting for a year. I could have bought a condo or even a house with the money I got from Aether Corp, but that felt too permanent. I’m still getting used to a life where everything isn’t temporary.

And with that black car following me around, I don’t trust Aether not to take it all away.

I stare at the popcorn ceiling and run through my memories for the hundredth time, trying to figure out if I missed something, hoping to find an explanation stored away in my brain for why Aether is watching me.

Six months ago, they sent me—and four other teenagers—thirty years into the future for twenty-four hours. The goal was to collect data and technology so they could reverse engineer it after we returned. But it didn’t work out that way.

We broke the rule Aether gave us to not look into our own futures and learned we were going to be murdered when we got back to the present—and all evidence pointed to me as the killer. Only by trusting Adam, one of the other time travelers on my team, was I able to uncover the real murderer.

Lynne, the project manager for the time-travel experiment, had been secretly working with Adam to bring back something his future self developed: the cure for cancer. Lynne wanted it for her daughter, who was dying and didn’t have much time left. But once Adam brought the cure back to the present to save his mother, the three others on our team—Chris, Trent, and Zoe—stole it. They thought they could use it as leverage to ensure they wouldn’t be killed, but Lynne tracked them down and shot them to get it back. The final step of her plan was to kill me and frame me for the murders as a cover-up.

With Adam’s help, I was able to change the timeline and stop Lynne, but I wasn’t able to save Trent or Zoe—and their deaths continue to haunt me. I failed them. I have to live with that. Forever.

Lynne’s death is on my hands too. I’m the one who shot her. It was self-defense, but that does little to ease my conscience in the middle of the night.

Even though Aether Corporation had nothing to do with Lynne’s secret agenda or the others’ deaths, they could be trying to dig up the truth about what happened the night of the murders. Or maybe it has nothing to do with Lynne and the murders, and everything to do with Aether’s other secret: future shock.

Our team discovered that Aether Corp sent time travelers to the future before us, and the ones who returned suffered future shock, which causes paranoia, memory loss, and delusions. They chose the five of us because they believed teenage brains might be immune to future shock—and they were right. None of us had any of the side effects when we returned to the present. But to protect ourselves, we lied about everything and told them we were suffering from it.

Now I wonder if Aether knows, or at least suspects, that we lied. Are they following us to see if we’ve recovered our memories or if we’re suffering from any side effects? Or are they making sure we don’t break the confidentiality agreement and tell everyone what they did—and how three people are dead as a result?

No matter how many times I go over it, I have no more answers than I did before. Until they come for me, I won’t know what they’re after.

I grab my bag and pull out my statistics textbook to read this week’s assigned chapters, hoping that will distract me. Maybe if I pretend I’m just an average college student, I’ll start to believe it.

At 7:14 p.m., there’s a knock on my door. I jerk upright, and my textbook hits the floor with a thud. My fists clench, my heart thunders, and I’m instantly in fight-or-flight mode.

Knowing me, it’ll be fight.

I already suspect who’s on the other side, but I can’t help this response. Ever since I came back from future, this is how my body reacts to everything. I’m always on alert, ready for an attack, expecting the worst.

I open the door. Adam waits outside my apartment, carrying a bag of takeout, and the tension drains out of my body instantly. His dark hair is messy and wet, hanging down almost to his blackrimmed glasses. A faint trace of stubble lines his jaw, like he forgot to shave for a day or two. My heart lifts as his blue eyes meet mine and a grin crosses his lips.

“I brought dinner,” he says, holding up the large brown bag. Chinese food, from the smell, probably from my favorite place down the road. Even though I knew he was coming, it’s still a surprise to see him. I keep expecting that one day he’ll stop showing up. Or that he’ll walk out of my life like everyone else has. But he hasn’t vanished yet.