Future Threat

4

“I know.” His shoulders slump, and the fight seems to have gone out of him. After a moment of staring at nothing, he picks up his plate again and starts eating, but I know he’s not going to listen to me. Adam will never give up trying to save the world, even if he pushes himself too hard in the process. I just have to make sure he doesn’t burn himself out by trying to speed up the future.

“How was your day?” he asks, wisely changing the subject.

I hesitate, but I can’t bear to bring up the black car or my near panic attack, not now. Besides, it’s not like anything new happened today with the car. It follows Adam too, although not as often as it follows me. If I mention the car, it will only worry him. And he definitely doesn’t need to know I thought I saw Zoe in the street.

“Fine, except I swear my statistics teacher is trying to confuse us on purpose so we all fail,” I say, keeping my tone light. “Nothing he says makes any damn sense.”

“Hmm. I always liked statistics.”

“Of course you did. Maybe you can explain it to me.”

He points his chopsticks at me. “Since when do you need my help with school? You’re the one with the eidetic memory. Pretty sure you could ace all of your classes without even trying.”

“My other classes maybe, but not this one.” I stab my fork at my kung pao chicken. No chopsticks for me. I still can’t seem to master them, no matter how many times Adam has tried to show me how to use them. My fingers just won’t cooperate. “Just ’cause I remember what he says doesn’t mean I understand half of it.”

“I’d be happy to tutor you after dinner.”

“Thanks.” There he goes again, being too good to me. My stomach twists, and I set my fork down, unable to eat another bite.

Adam and I shouldn’t be together. We’re total opposites with completely different lives. He’s a genius who graduated from college at sixteen with two degrees, and his future involves curing cancer and winning a Nobel Prize. Me? My father’s in prison for killing my mother. I’ve spent the last couple years living in a different home every few months. And until recently I didn’t have a future at all.

If we hadn’t been recruited by Aether Corp for the time-travel experiment, we never would have met. The fact that we’re dating—that he could possibly be interested in someone like me—completely mystifies me. Every day I worry he’s going to wake up and wonder what the hell he’s doing with a wreck like me when he could do so much better.

This thing between us can never last. I should end it now before I get hurt. Before he gets hurt. But I can’t let Adam go. I care about him too much.

And so we remain, trapped in this strange limbo where he takes one step forward and I take another back. A never-ending dance that leaves us both unsatisfied.

The dream is always the same.

There’s a bloated, white hand in the dumpster. The stench nearly overpowers me, but I reach inside, digging through the trash and rotten food, trying to find him. I have to get him out. I have to save him before it’s too late.

The hand suddenly jerks to life and grips my arm in its stiff, icy fingers. I scream and try to pull away, to pry them off me, but it’s no use. No matter how hard I fight, the hand won’t let go—and then it pulls me into the dumpster with the body. I see it clearly now as the trash surrounds me: the too-pale skin and glassy eyes of this thing that used to be Trent. He opens his mouth, the teeth all black, and says, “You’re too late, Elena.”

And then the dumpster is a bathtub, but the water is as cold as his hand was. Not just water, but blood. It drips down bone-white tiles and fills the tub like thick, red paint. In only seconds I’m drowning in it, choking on it, struggling to get out. But as I try to stand, another clammy hand pulls me down by the ankle. Zoe’s head emerges from the bloody water, her skin almost as blue as her hair, her eyes bulging. She whispers, “Help me, Elena.”

And then I’m in the ocean, drowning in pitch-black salt water, my bones so cold I can barely move at all. My head crests the surface and I take a deep, ragged breath of air, but another dead hand grips my neck, and the face in front of me is Lynne’s this time. Panic shoots through me and I fight, but she’s too strong. She chokes me with frozen, bony fingers and her mouth opens—

“Elena, wake up. It’s just a dream.”

Adam’s calm voice breaks through the darkness, and I open my eyes. We’re on my couch, where we fell asleep while watching a superhero movie. His warm arms are wrapped around me, holding me to his chest. The water, the hands, the death…none of it is real.

The dream releases its grip on me, and I bury my face in his neck, clinging to his strong, solid presence. Cold sweat soaks through my T-shirt. Adrenaline pumps through my veins and makes me twitch, like my skin is about to jump off and run away without the rest of me. I’m safe, but I can’t convince my body of that.

“Adam,” I whisper, needing to feel his name on my tongue, to hold on to the one good, normal thing in my life.

He kisses my forehead, his arms tightening around me. “It’s okay. It’s over. I’ve got you.”

I take a long, shuddering breath and try to relax. Adam rubs a hand up and down my back. Thank God he’s still here. It’s so much worse when I wake up alone.

“Was it the same dream?” he asks once my heart rate has returned to normal and I no longer grip him like he’s the only thing that will save me from drowning. My throat feels too scratchy to speak, so I only nod. “Maybe you should see that therapist again,” he says.

I sit up, loosening myself from his arms. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not? It seemed to help.”