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“No,” she says.
I hold the gun out, but I’m pointing at nothing, and everyone knows I won’t shoot, can’t shoot, can’t even see what needs to be shot. Phillip Keane is to my right, James Keane is to my left, Fia is sliding along the wall to get behind me.
The two men still beat at each other on the floor and I think—I know—help will come too late. It’s too late. I’m useless.
Fia puts a hand on my shoulder, reaches from behind me, takes the gun from my hand. “Good-bye, Annie,” she says, and she doesn’t sound sad. She sounds . . . gone.
Then she raises the gun and
She shoots Sadie in the head
Or
She shoots Phillip Keane in the head
It changes—shifts back and forth between the two realities so quickly I can’t figure out which happens, which will happen, which did happen. It is all a blur of heads and bullets and dying.
But the ending is always the same.
She puts the still-smoking gun under her own chin and pulls the trigger again. Darkness returning brings no relief. My head is buried in Cole’s chest, and he strokes my hair, telling me it will be okay.
It won’t.
“We’re there,” I sob. “We try to stop it and it doesn’t change anything.”
“We still have to try,” he says.
And he’s right. This is the tragedy of knowing my fate: I have seen how it ends, and I will walk right into it, and nothing will change.
FIA
Six Minutes Before
ONCE UPON A TIME, I WAS A LITTLE GIRL WITH A MOM and a dad and a sister, and the only monsters in the world were imaginary.
Then I became one of the monsters.
Once upon a time I thought I had done enough to keep Annie safe. I thought that if she was gone, if we were separated, we would finally be free to make our own choices.
But I was wrong. She was still in danger. She was always in danger. We had it backward. I’m the problem. As long as I’m alive, Annie isn’t safe. As long as I’m alive, no one who should be is.
One more. One more thing. I’ll do one more terrible thing, one last terrible thing to keep her safe.
And I won’t think beyond that.
ANNIE
Ten Minutes Before
I BLINK AWAY THE LIGHT, TREMBLING AND SHAKING.
“Again?” Cole asks, his voice soft. I’ve had the vision four more times on the way here. It doesn’t change.
It never changes.
Cars honk behind us, the city louder than I could have imagined. We’re outside the building where Keane’s offices are on the top floor. I feel like we’re on the edge of a cliff, and I know we’ll fall, and I know exactly what the impact at the bottom will feel like.
I can’t save Fia. I can’t even protect Sadie.
