Sleep No More
Page 40

I search around the room for a clock and it reads 6:20. Probably p.m.
I get it. Only the future. Near future, sure, but only the future. Not the past. Damn it! I can’t follow this victim’s trail backward to the killer. Not unless I have a vision. I want to howl at the unfairness of it all.
But maybe I can find out who the victim is. The scene is bustling with so many people in lab coats, everyone bending over the body; I can’t get a close enough look and even when I rise up onto my knees and crane my neck, I can’t see past them.
Smith said Shelby went into scenes. Maybe I can do that too.
But what if I get stuck? Smith talks about this place like it’s a playground for practicing, but it must be more than that for it to feature so heavily in Sierra’s book.
For her to keep it a secret.
I know so little about it—what if I screw everything up?
But then I remember talking with my mom. “No risk, no reward,” I whisper to myself.
I push my nerves away and rise from the glass floor slowly, pressing my fingertips on the ground until the last second to make sure I can keep my balance when I straighten. I stare at the scene in front of me, using it to help me stay upright.
One step, two. I wobble, but remain standing. The noise gets louder as I draw closer and when I actually step over the short frame and into the scene it feels like a warm, tingling rush of water cascades over me.
And then I’m simply there, in the morgue. When I look back I can still see the odd, rainbow brightness of wherever it is I started, but it’s a small circle that I’m too big to fit through. I wrinkle my brows at it in worry and take a step backward, but as I do, the circle grows and I realize I’m not trapped. It’s waiting there for me.
Confident I can get back, I turn around and take a few more steps into the morgue. I like the feeling of being in one of the scenes. The ground here is solid and opaque and feels so much more real than the plane behind me.
I focus on the table a mere eight feet away. On the person lying there. I figure I’m not really here since nothing I do can affect anything in the physical world. But it’s still a little creepy when the men and women take oddly veering steps to avoid me. Like I am there. Like they can see me.
Still no one speaks to me or tries to stop me from approaching the body, so I’m pretty sure I’m not actually visible. When I reach the table, I’m disappointed to see the face is draped. But this isn’t a vision. Maybe . . .
I reach out and touch the edge of the thick, white cloth with my finger.
My fingertips caress the rough threads, sliding along until I reach the edge. I lift it away from the lifeless face and look down.
Eddie Franklin.
My heart sinks. He’s a senior. He was in science with me. He was really quiet and one day at the beginning of the semester we were assigned to exchange quizzes.
He got every single answer wrong.
I got every single one right.
I caught him after class and told him we could work together if he wanted. He called me a nosy bitch and told me to mind my own business. But two weeks later, after a big exam, he came to me and apologized.
And asked if the offer still stood.
We studied during lunch, hidden in his car with the heater on. He told me a bit about his home life with an alcoholic dad, how much he wanted to move out. But if he failed this class, he wouldn’t graduate.
I wouldn’t say we were friends, exactly—he never talked to me other than at lunch, and our study sessions stopped after Bethany was killed—but we had this tentative respect.
I wonder if he passed his final. Then realize it doesn’t matter.
He was kind of a loner without very many friends. Maybe that’s why no one knows it was him who got killed.
I clamp my trembling jaw and look down at his pale body. The left side of his face is a mass of bruises as is his throat. It looks like Eddie was strangled.
Like Jesse was supposed to be.
But with Jesse, the bruises were centralized around the throat and the body was tossed aside once the life was gone.
The killer wasn’t satisfied with just killing Eddie. His head is oddly shaped on one side, making my stomach churn. I bet his skull is broken underneath. Both arms and legs are bent at sickening angles and one side of his chest is caved in. I have to look away before I throw up.
If only, if only I could have done something.
I turn away, anxious to be anywhere—even the nausea-inducing dome—other than here. I trip over my own feet as I stagger out of the circle that leads me back to the mirror floor, but I don’t care. I just lay there, wishing everything around me would fade away.
Because even though that scene at the morgue is somewhere in the near future, Eddie’s death isn’t. He’s gone, and the abilities of an Oracle are powerless against the past.
I have to think of something good before I drown in despair. I close my eyes and picture Linden to center myself. For several long minutes, I let myself focus on nothing but him until I’m ready to open my eyes. When I do, I am surrounded by visions of Linden. Him with me, him alone, him with someone else, his parents, teachers, friends, other girls.
“Every possible future,” I whisper. I catch a glimpse of myself far above my head on my right, and focus on it. I know what to do this time, and as the scene comes closer, I rise quickly and step into it, needing something comforting after the morgue.
There we are, sitting together on his couch, laughing. I walk forward and as I approach, he says something I don’t hear and the scene blurs, then splits and offers me two new scenarios.