it everywhere—in my toes and elbows. Behind my ears. The tip of my nose. What on earth? Is it relief? Stress? Anticipation?
I shift against the cushions, and my concentration shatters. What if my memory doesn’t come? Maybe I should’ve taken the candle. Panic shoots through me, and I dig my fingernails into my palms. No. I can’t think that way. I’ve got to focus.
Okay. What else is open? The wide blue sky, opening up over the fields. The canned vegetables the Meal Assembler cracks open for dinner. The windows I fling open on a hot, summer day.
The memory from the future that flows into my ready, open mind.
Open, open, open.
I feel that something again, stronger this time. Oh, my. It’s not my emotions—it’s my memory. My memory. OPEN.
I am walking down a hall. It has green linoleum floors, with computer screens embedded in the tiles. The lighted walls shine so brightly I can make out a partial shoe print on the ground. The acrid smell of antiseptic burns my nose.
I turn a corner and skirt around the shattered remains of a ceramic pot. A trail of soil leads like breadcrumbs to a broken plant stalk and loose green leaves.
I walk down an identical hallway. And then another. And another.
Finally, I stop in front of a door. A golden placard, with snail spirals decorating each corner, bears the number 522. I go inside. The sun shines through the window, the first window I have seen in this place. A teddy bear with a red bow sits on the windowsill; otherwise, everything is hospital white. White walls, white blinds, white bed sheets.
In the middle of the sheets lies Jessa.
She is young, hardly older than she was when I saw her yesterday. Her hair falls to her shoulders, tangled and unbraided. Wires protrude from her body like they are Medusa’s snakes, winding every which way before ending in one of several machines.
“Callie! You came!” My sister’s lips curve in a beautiful smile.
I am gripping something in my hand, something hard and small and cylindrical. “Of course I came. How are they treating you?”
Jessa wrinkles her nose. “The food is gross. And they never let me play outside.”
I flex my hand and roll an object along my palm. It’s a syringe, with clear liquid swimming in the barrel. A needle. I am holding a needle.
“When you leave, you can play as much as you like.” I move the wires off her chest and place my hand squarely over her heart. “I love you, Jessa. You know that, don’t you?”
She nods. Her heart thumps evenly against my palm, the strong, steady beat of the complete trust a child has for her older sister.
“Forgive me,” I whisper.
Before she can react, I whip my arm through the air and plunge the needle straight into her heart. The clear liquid empties into my sister.
Jessa stares at me, eyes wide and mouth open.
Loud beeping fills the room. And then the heart rate monitor goes flat.
4
I can’t breathe. I take huge gulps of air, but it doesn’t help. I’m drowning. I’m drenched in sweat, and my sweat is drowning me. I jerk up, and someone pushes my head between my knees. My reflection stares up at me from the tile. I’m back in the memory room.
“Breathe,” William says. “I didn’t see that coming. Who was that girl?”
“My sister,” I mumble.
“You killed your own sister? Mother of Fate. Who are you?”
Good question. Who am I? Criminal. Murderer. Sister-killer.
No. No. No. That was a dream, a hallucination. That wasn’t my memory. Not my future.
But it was. I can tell from the nausea clenching my stomach. The phantom ache in my shoulder. The nightmare’s not fading. It’s just as real now as it was a few moments ago. Just as real and even more horrible.
Oh, my baby Jessa. The girl I swore to protect. What have I done?
I begin to shake, insistent twitchy motions that vibrate my shoulders and rattle my teeth. My hands clench, but the shaking only spreads.
“Calm down.” William grabs a blanket from a shelf and throws it over me. “Relax a minute and don’t move.”
Like moving is an option. I’m not sure moving will ever be an option again.
I huddle under the blanket. It smells like laundry detergent. The stiff fibers brush against my skin, and sweat trickles into my eyes. I pull the blanket over my head until my world is nothing but deep, dark blackness.
William clears his throat. Pushing the blanket down, I see him ejecting the