Forget Tomorrow - Pintip Dunn Page 0,23

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