9

I dream. Or, at least, I think it’s a dream. It’s not a hallucination because I remember this actually happening. Except it’s not a regular memory, hazy and indistinct. I live the moment, feeling every sensation, every texture, every detail, like I did in my future memory.

I wish it were real. Oh, how I wish I could go back to that time again.

So, yeah. I guess the best word for it is “dream.”

I lean my forehead against the cool glass sensor on my locker door. My eyes are all hot on the inside, but I’m not going to cry. That would be stupid. I mean, my mom could’ve let the baby miss her nap for one morning. It’s not every day my pot roast is chosen for the school’s Art Extravaganza. But it’s fine. Whatever. The baby needs her sleep. The baby needs to stick to a routine. Anything for the baby.

The locker beeps at me. “Access Denied. Fingerprints Undetected.” Sighing, I replace my forehead with my palm. A second later the locker swings open, and I see, among the jumble of measuring cups and skin tints, a single, orange leaf.

I suck in a breath. I don’t know how he does it. These lockers are supposed to be vandal-proof, but I find a new leaf inside every single day.

As I do everyday, I pick up the leaf and twirl the stem with my fingers.

“I love your entry in the Extravaganza,” a voice says behind me. “It tastes so different from the manufactured version.”

I drop the leaf like I wasn’t just caressing it and turn to face Logan. His hair is wet, as though he’s tried to smooth it down, but a few strands stick up in the back. My heart stutters.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to sound casual. “It’s one of my family’s favorite dinners.”

What I won’t admit to anyone, especially my mother, is that I made the pot roast because it’s one of the few dishes Jessa can eat. The carrots and potatoes are soft enough to mash, and whenever I put some in her mouth, my sister claps her hands and reaches for more. In those moments it doesn’t matter that my mother’s forgotten about me since the baby was born. It’s Jessa and me together against the rest of the world.

“So you made it for your mom?” Logan asks.

Maybe I did, but she couldn’t even bother to come to school and taste it. A spurt of anger rushes through me. “No. I made it for my father.”

“I thought he was gone.”

Gone. That’s one way to describe it. Eight years ago, my father left for work—and never came home. My mother has never explained where he went.

I slam my locker shut. “He’s coming back.”

Logan blinks. No doubt he’s heard his own version of what happened to my father. “How do you know?”

It was only a distant hope before. Something I would cross my fingers and wish for when I heard my mother crying at night. But now, saying it to Logan, I know it’s true. I feel it down to the very core of my being.

“My mother loves my father too much to have a baby with anyone else.” And Jessa’s baby pictures look just like mine. We are the products of a mixed heritage. We have my father’s eyes, which taper at the corners. And my mother’s seashell skin. “So he’s been back,” I say slowly, working it out in my head. “Maybe he had to leave again for work or something, but now that Jessa’s here, he’s going to come back and take care of us.” I look at Logan, almost pleading, “Wouldn’t you? If you had a little baby like Jessa, wouldn’t you want to be with her?”

“If I had someone like you in my life, I would never leave to begin with,” he says, his voice steady and sure.

Except he does.

A few short weeks later, his brother Mikey made a racquetball hover above the court, and Logan stopped being my friend. I kept the final leaf in my locker until it crumbled. I even left my locker door open a few times, to make it easy for him.

But a new leaf never showed up. And neither did my father.

When I wake my brain feels sluggish, like I have to push every thought through a sieve before it will register. It’s been a long time since I felt that resentment toward my sister. Could this be why my future self kills her—because I’m harboring some jealousy toward Jessa that I won’t even admit to myself?

No. I didn’t feel jealous or resentful in my memory. I just felt . . . dread. I sit up and pull my knees to my chest. Jessa’s the good one, the sweet one. She doesn’t argue with my mom, doesn’t forget her chores. I’ve never once seen Mom clutch her temples and moan because of Jessa. So what if Mom loves her more? I would love her more, too.

At least one thing’s clear. My mind can manipulate more than my future memory. I can “live” other memories, too.

Testing the theory, I pull up the image of Logan’s face, just as he tells me he will never leave me. I zoom in on the picture until all I can see is the sharp edge of one cheekbone. And yes, there on his cheek is a single, stray eyelash.

I let out a deep breath. So there’s my answer. My brain can zoom like a recording device. It’s not something weird about future memories. It’s definitely me.

The ability started the day I received my memory. Could that process have something to do with these powers?

“Powers” feels like too strong a word. It’s not like I can see the future or make things float. At most I’m a glorified digital camera. Does that really qualify as a psychic ability? If so, it’s not like any psychic ability I’ve ever heard of.

I get to my feet and walk around the cell, swinging my arms back and forth. Now that I’m getting used to the idea, I think I’m okay with it. The worst thing about having a psychic ability is that TechRA will be after you. But they’ve already got me locked up. And the best thing? Well, maybe I can find a way to use it against them.

“Hatchie. Hey, hatchie.”

I halt. Who’s that? The voice seems to have come from right next to me, but there’s no one else in my cell. No one outside the bars, either. I must be hearing things.

“Hey, hatch. When you’re done with the calisthenics, why don’t you come talk to me?”

Calisthenics? I realize my arms are still swinging. Hastily, I tuck them behind my back.

“Over here. In the corner. There’s a loose brick.”

I cross the room in the direction of the voice. Dropping to my knees, I run my hands along the wall. Dust covers my fingertips as they dip into the grout. At the very bottom, I feel empty space where a brick has been removed.

I stretch on the ground, aligning my face with the hole.

An eye looks back at me.

My pulse jumps. The eye is round, with long black lashes that stick straight out. Back at school, those lashes would’ve been the envy of all the girls. She could’ve crimped them, even attached tiny beads. But here in detainment, without the proper beauty tools, the lashes look overgrown, like weeds in an untended garden.

“How come I never noticed this hole before?” I ask.

“Because, hatchie,” the voice says like I’m stupid, “I never took out the brick before. I didn’t feel like listening to a sniveling wimp cry about missing her mama. But after you riled up the girls yesterday, I thought you might be able to amuse me.”

That’s the second person who’s taken my actions to mean something they’re not. I didn’t yell out those things because I’m aggressive or interesting. I was just…impatient.

“Why do you call me hatchie?” I ask.

“Because you’re like a baby bird about to step off a branch and plummet to your death. I call all the new girls that.”

“Who are you?”

The eye blinks. “You can call me Sully.”

“Sally?”

“No. Sully. Either because I’m sullen or because I’m the one who sullies everything up. Take your pick.”

The voice is young, so she must’ve been a newbie herself not too long ago. But her tone is heavy, weighed with the kind of complexity you get only with experience.

“So Sully, when will they let me see my mother?” I don’t want to see Jessa. Too dangerous. But maybe I can warn my mom. Let her know I saw Jessa as a lab subject in a future world, so she can take extra precautions to prevent it from happening.

The single eye rolls. “You don’t get to see your family, hatchie. This ain’t detainment, you know. No visitation rights in Limbo.”

Huh? My skin’s rubbed raw from the coarse jumpsuit, and I live in a cell with buckets of urine and feces that have been festering for days. Of course this is detainment.

“What are you talking about? What’s Limbo?” As I ask the question, I realize I’ve heard the term before, from Chairwoman Dresden.

Sully’s eye closes and I see lines etched into the eyelid, too precise to be veins. She must have a picture tattooed there. I move a little closer, but my head blocks the already dim light, so I ease back again.

The eye opens. “You’re in Limbo because you haven’t done anything wrong yet, so they can’t convict you of anything. But they can’t let you go, either, because you will commit a crime. So they keep you here until something changes.”

“But what could possibly change?” I ask. “I can’t commit the crime if they’ve got me locked up. Right?”

The eye blinks. “Maybe, hatchie. Maybe not.”

“What does that mean?”

She doesn’t respond. I wait an entire minute, but the eye just continues to look at me.

I try a different question. “Sully, have you ever seen them use a needle here? A syringe about the length of my palm, and, you know, cylindrical?”

An emotion I can’t read passes through her eye. “Yes.”

I suck in a breath. “When was it? What do you know about it?”

She considers me for a long moment. Blink, blink, blink. “What’s in it for me?”

I’m not so much of a hatchie I don’t know that information doesn’t come for free. There’s only one problem. I don’t have much to bargain with.

“You want my glop?” I ask.

She snorts. “Please.”

“I’m a good listener. I’ll listen to you whenever you want.”

“Even more pathetic. I didn’t say I needed a friend, hatch. And if I did, it wouldn’t be you.”

I want to bang my head against the wall. “What do you want from me?”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” She laughs. “You don’t have anything I want.” Humming a tune I don’t recognize, she nudges the brick back into place.

“Wait—” I say, but it’s too late. The conversation’s over.

I run my fingers over the wall. The loose brick doesn’t come out as far as the others. I push against it, but it doesn’t budge. She must’ve braced something against it.

Smart girl, that Sully. The half-inch makes it impossible for me to grasp the brick, giving her absolute control over when to start a conversation.

Sighing, I retreat to the opposite wall. I have to find out about this needle, figure out how my future self gets ahold of it, if only to make sure my present self doesn’t.

But whatever Sully knows remains out of my reach. That is, until I figure out how to give her something she wants.