Seize Today

by Dunn, Pintip

  He raises his eyebrows at the platform of boards hovering next to me. “What do we have here?”

  “Oh, um. It’s complicated.” I rack my brain, trying to find the easiest way to explain. “We just need a place to hide until he wakes up. And then we’ll be on our way.”

  He scrutinizes my forehead, my brows, my eyes. “You’re a good girl, Olivia. You always have been. Are you quite certain you’re not in over your head?”

  “I probably am,” I say, and a part of me yearns to run to my hiding spot behind his glider, the place where I cowered if I happened to hear a loud noise or if even Potts’s meager world turned out to be too much. “In fact, I’m sure of it. But what else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just leave him.”

  I glance down at Ryder’s sleeping form, but Potts continues to stare at me, so long I wonder if he can read my mind. But he’s never admitted to having any kind of psychic ability—not that he would in this political climate.

  “Fine,” he finally says. “You can stay here.” He snaps his fingers, and the bloodhound that’s been sniffing around me trots to him. “Me and Betsy, we’ve been planning a little camp-out. Maybe do some fishing, a little hunting.” His eyes sharpen. “Given what you don’t want to tell me about this boy, maybe we should go ahead and take that trip now.”

  “Maybe so,” I say.

  He nods. “Got it. Just remember, if it ever comes to it, I never gave you permission to crash in my cabin.”

  I widen my eyes. “I never even saw you.”

  He pats my hand and walks away, whistling a tune. Betsy lopes after him. As I watch their retreating backs, an old yearning rises in me—one that I don’t fully understand. Potts has always been kind to me, and he listens to me. Maybe that explains my feelings. Fates knows, simple appreciation has been hard to come by in my life.

  Doesn’t mean I have to get nostalgic. Doesn’t mean I have to let my mind wander to the chairwoman, to whether she’s recovered from the torture.

  Turning, I command the hover platform to bring Ryder into the cabin.

  I have a mission to accomplish.

  10

  Ryder bolts upright and gasps, hungrily sucking in air as if it’s his first breath in hours. Day has turned to night outside the cabin, and it’s about time he woke up.

  “Where in Fates am I?” he rasps. His eyes roam the room, skipping from me to the rickety shelf that holds actual books, to the fire flickering behind the grate. “What did you do to me?”

  My heart bounces around my chest like the racquetball I used to play with as a kid, but I calmly carry over a cup of water and a plate of sandwiches. “You must be thirsty. And hungry. Potts has only the most basic Meal Assembler. I wasn’t sure how you like your turkey sandwiches, so I ordered up the works. Lettuce, cheese, mayo, pickles.”

  He stares at me like I just proposed eating the same meal for the rest of the year. Which is probably what Potts does.

  “You were sitting on my lap. You had one hand on my chest, and the other hand…” His brow creases. “Your other hand had just stabbed something into my neck.” His fingers drift to the puncture site. “And now I’m here. What happened?”

  I begin to rip his sandwich into tiny pieces, to give my hands something to do. “I injected you with an anesthetic, and you passed out. And then you exited the building through the conveyor belt that takes out the corpses.” I move my shoulders helplessly. “It was the only way. You’d never have been able to get past the identity scans.”

  He gapes. “You drugged me?”

  “I guess.” His dinner is now inedible—unless he likes sandwich confetti.

  He looks down at his body, at the unfamiliar sweats and T-shirt. The question hangs in the air between us.

  “Um, Potts got you dressed before he left on his hunting trip.” The blush flames up my cheeks. I’m not sure when would be a good time to tell him I cut off his pants. Maybe never.

  “You should’ve asked before injecting me,” he says.

  “You would’ve refused. Look how difficult you were when I asked you to play dead! No way you would’ve trusted me enough to let me inject you with anything.”

  His jaw clenches. “That should’ve been your first clue not to do it.”

  “I had to! Every other pathway gave us an almost nonexistent chance of escape.”

  “So you know everything, don’t you?” He leaps to his feet. “You can foresee my every move.”

  “That’s not the way it works.” I fight to keep my voice even. “I can’t tell the future. What I see are possible pathways. The only predictions I give are based on percentages.”

  “Oh yeah?” His eyebrows climb his forehead. “Well, predict this.”

  He strides to the door of the cabin, flings it open, and disappears into the night.

  My mouth drops open. Aw, Limbo. He’s right—I did see this particular branch in his future. But it had only a thirty percent chance of occurring. And it’s cold out there…and he’s barefoot… Fike. I can’t believe this is happening.

  Grabbing a pair of Potts’s shoes and an overcoat, I run into the dark. The world outside has turned into fog and shadows, with only a sliver of light emanating from the half-moon nestled above the trees. I can just make out Ryder’s shoulders bobbing in the distance.

  “Wait, Ryder, you need shoes! Your feet are going to get totally ripped up if you go out like that.”

  I put on a burst of speed and catch up with him. He doesn’t even break his stride.

  “You betrayed me,” he says, training his eyes straight ahead. “You don’t know me, but you’ll figure out soon enough. I don’t give second chances.”

  I puff out a breath. “I’m not asking for your life, Ryder. It’s just a pair of shoes.”

  He stops walking abruptly and turns to me, his eyes narrowed. “You got some kind of tracking device in there?”

  “Of course not,” I say, indignant.

  “You think you’re going to bribe your way into coming with me, then? Not a chance.”

  I take a rattling breath and try to pretend it’s just from running. Try to pretend it’s not because I’m unreasonably hurt. “Maybe I’m just being nice. You ever consider that? Father of Time, Ryder, I’m not the enemy here. I tortured my own mother. I hauled your ass onto a platform of six hoverboards and then guided you through miles of bramble and trees. I even cut off your pants.” Oops. So much for keeping that a secret. “What more do you want from me? How else can I prove that I’m trustworthy?”

  He sets his jaw. “I trusted someone before. And look what happened.”

  “Are you talking about Jessa?” I take a step forward, so he has no choice but to look at me. “She didn’t do it to hurt you. In fact, turning your family in was the hardest thing she’s ever done. I should know. We share an apartment in the scientific residences, and she still wakes up crying every night.”

  I reach out my hand—but I don’t touch him. Because I don’t know how he would react. Fates, I don’t know how I would react. “Nothing’s more important to Jessa than her family, and yet, she betrayed them anyway. She did it so she could gain the chairwoman’s trust, Ryder. So she could fight this war from within. So we can stop genocide once and for all.”

  He goes still, and for a moment, all I can hear is the sound of his ragged breathing. “If that’s true, why didn’t she tell me? She could’ve just explained. I would’ve played along.”

  “Would you have?” I ask. “Somehow, I doubt that. You would’ve argued, Mikey would’ve refused. Logan would’ve thought it was too dangerous.”

  “Maybe,” he admits. “But ultimately, I would’ve listened. She knows exactly how difficult it is for me to give my trust, and after all we’ve been through, she should’ve confided in me. It kills me that she didn’t.”

  “I know,” I say helplessly, even as my mind spins. How hard is it for him to give his trust? What could’ve happened to etch that pain across his face? “I’m sorry. She was busy. Busy with saving her sister
and busy with…”

  I trail off deliberately this time, not wanting to say my old playmate’s name, not knowing if Ryder’s just an old friend…or a rival for Jessa’s affections.

  “You mean Tanner?” Ryder says harshly. Anger and more than a tinge of jealousy color his words.

  Well. I guess that answers my question. I close my eyes, fighting the wave of disappointment that sweeps over me. It’s silly to feel this way. Ridiculous. Even if he weren’t my future executioner, I have no business noticing his looks or reacting to his nearness. I’m the chairwoman’s daughter, and he…he’s in love with his former best friend.

  We stand there for a moment, the wind cutting through my thin clothes, the ground shooting icicles through my sneakers.

  “You owe me,” I say, pulling out my trump card. “Nineteen days from now, you will execute me. That’s the ultimate betrayal there is. Don’t you think that at least warrants me the benefit of the doubt?”

  He pushes his hand dismissively through the air. “I told you before. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “You don’t know what your circumstances will be in nineteen days. You don’t know what might compel you to make that decision.” I draw a full breath. “But what it comes down to is you’re asking me to trust you. With my life. You’re really not going to give me the same courtesy in return?”

  He eyes Potts’s shoes warily. They’re the old-school kind, the ones without the cooling gel and automatic venting. They won’t even help you stay on a hoverboard, as the only magnets they contain are the ones keeping the clasps closed. “You really want to waste your second chance on a pair of shoes?”

  “That and a night for you to rest, here at Potts’s.” I hold up a hand as he begins to protest. “Just hear me out. It’s dark now. And cold. You just woke up, figuratively, from the dead. You need to drink and eat and sleep.” I attempt a smile. “I can virtually guarantee—in over ninety percent of the pathways—that you’re better off having spent the night.”

  As if to punctuate my words, a sudden gust pelts us with water droplets. He squints first at the dark sky and then at me. “Fine,” he says reluctantly. It’s just a single word, but it makes all the air expel from my chest. He agreed. He’s staying. “But let me make one thing clear. This is the last chance you get. Understood?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Just don’t expect me to change my mind in the morning and let you tag along with me.”

  I don’t say anything. I don’t have to. Because I’ve seen his future pathways, and that’s exactly what I’m hoping for.

  11

  I dream.

  Disjointed images. A dirt road that shifts and crumbles beneath my feet. My mother, with her arms crossed and a sneer upon her face. People in my peripheral vision pulsing in and out of this realm. One moment I see them; the next, I don’t.

  A feeling rises within me, washing over me, threatening to pull me under. An underlying edge of fear. A vague sense of things ending. I can’t quite grasp what it means. I reach for it. I stretch my mind for some kind of understanding, for even a handful of words.

  It’s big. Bigger than me, bigger than my life. A decision point. The weight of the world resting on the fragile point of a pin. Like a house of playing cards, like a long line of dominoes. Something that took a person a lifetime to set up.

  I reach my hand toward her, my mother, my entire world. Carefully, cautiously. One false move, one wrong action, and it could all come crashing down. And yet, my motion is too sudden, too fast. Because then I hear it: the silence that rings in your ears before the crash of an entire time stream.

  It’s over. She’s gone. This is the end…the end…the end…

  …

  “Olivia! Wake up!” A low and familiar voice yanks me out of the dream.

  I blink into the dark. The sheets are twisted around my legs, and I’m drenched with sweat. My heart thunders in my ears, and for a moment, all I can breathe is utter and complete despair.

  And then the nightmare fades, like the turrets of a sand castle built too close to the ocean. Real life settles in, fact by concrete fact. Ryder. Potts’s cabin. The two of us crashed in the living area on couches opposite each other. It must still be the middle of the night, as the room is illuminated only by the moonbeams slinking through the skylight.

  It was a dream. Only a dream. Nothing but a dream.

  I turn to Ryder to tell him I’m fine. And realize I’m not the one who needs comforting.

  His eyes are wide, and he’s gulping at the air. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. No, not a ghost, because that would imply something that was living and is now dead. He looks like he’s seen the future—our future.

  “Ryder, you’re shaking,” I venture.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” he whispers. “You cried: don’t leave me. You screamed: please, Mom, I’m begging you. And then you moaned like your heart would break. Like no matter what you said or did, she left you anyway.”

  I freeze. I’ve never revealed so much of myself to anyone. Not MK, who was my child-minder for the first six years of my life. Not Jessa, who I’ve lived with for the last six months. Certainly not my mother.

  “You don’t have any right,” he gasps. “These are my dreams. This is my past. Stay out of my head.”

  For a moment, all I can do is blink. And then, comprehension crashes over me. Holy Fates. He thinks this was his nightmare. Not mine.

  “I’m a precognitive,” I say carefully. “I can’t climb into your mind and read your thoughts. I don’t steal dreams.”

  He stares. And then snaps his mouth closed, as though realizing how much he’s revealed.

  “Oh,” he mumbles. “I, uh… Forget I said anything.”

  His muscles tense like he’s about to bolt, and I don’t want him to bolt. More than that, I want to erase the miserable look on his face.

  “I’ve had this nightmare ever since I was a kid,” I say slowly. Conversationally. As if we were just two people who met at the virtual theater. “Sometimes the details change. Eden City might be burning behind me, or I might get sucked into the concrete sidewalk like I’m standing in quicksand. But one thing is always the same.” I swallow. “I make the wrong decision. My mother leaves me irrevocably. I feel hollowed out, a shell of a person, and then…the world ends.”

  “The apocalypse,” he says, drawn in despite himself.

  “Maybe.” Overheated, all of a sudden, I toss off my quilt. Limbo. The oversized shirt I borrowed from Potts has ridden up, and I’m showing way too much of my bare legs. Not that Ryder notices. His eyes are practically magnetized to my face. I tug my shirt down. “I mean, it’s just a dream, but I’m also a precognitive. I can’t just discount my dreams like most people. Especially now that the timing’s ripe for a disaster.

  “My mother’s risen in power. She’s Chairwoman of the entire Committee of Agencies, not just FuMA. The people are getting agitated. Ever since Mikey left civilization, taking with him his controlled and peaceful leadership of the Underground, there have been more skirmishes. More open defiance of ComA.” I shake my head. “These small rebellions have been quelled, quickly, but I foresee riots in our future. I foresee chaos and destruction. The pathways our world will take are still too varied for me to predict, but the end is coming. Even if I can’t visualize it, I feel it in my bones.”

  “Is that why you chose to defy your mother now?” he asks.

  I start. Is it? I’ve always known about the end of the world, and I’ve always thought I would sit on the sidelines and watch it happen. I assumed I pushed my mother into the reclining chair because I finally saw her for who she really was. Because I wanted to save Callie, because I couldn’t bear for this boy to be tortured.

  But maybe there’s more to it than that. Maybe I also want to avoid that wrong decision.

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly.

  He eases back. The couch squeaks, and the air between us is solid. Heavy with an expectation that I don�
��t want him to feel but that I’d like him to fulfill anyway. I told him about my dream, something I’ve never shared with anyone before. I’m curious—no, dying—to hear about his. Because it seems like his mother abandoned him, too. It appears he knows how it feels to be lost and unloved, too. Maybe, like me, he’s even questioned his worth. When your own parent doesn’t see your value, then who will?

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I say into the silence. “I mean, dreams… They’re really personal even if they aren’t real. But, um…I think I might understand how you feel. I think I might even feel the same way. Because the chairwoman doesn’t love me. Not in any meaningful way.”

  He looks at me with heartbreak in his eyes. “I wish my dream wasn’t real. But this recurring nightmare is something that happened when I was six years old.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “In all this time, I’ve told this story to three people. Jessa, Mikey, and Angela. You’ll be the fourth.” He pulls my blanket onto his legs and digs his fingers into the fabric. Takes a deep breath. I can’t believe he’s actually going to tell me.

  “My brother, Damian, had a psychic ability. All he had to do was touch you, and he could tell what you were thinking. It was pretty awesome, but it was embarrassing, too. Like, he would grab my hand and then tell my teacher I thought she was pretty. Or he would sneak into my dreams at night and then recount them to my parents over breakfast the next day.” He ducks his head. “I guess that’s why I assumed you had gotten in my dreams earlier. Sorry.”

  “No problem,” I say softly, not wanting to interrupt him.

  “Anyhow, I always knew that Damian was their favorite son. He was older than me and smarter. And well, he was their first, you know? I think my parents gave him so much of themselves that there wasn’t any left for me. And that didn’t bother me too much. It was just the way life was.

  “Back then, ComA was locking up psychics so they could study them, and my parents were terrified they were going to find out about Damian. They got in touch with Melie, the leader of the Underground back then, and she told them about Harmony, the community in the wilderness where psychics and their families could go to escape persecution.” He stops, rubs his forehead. “Only my mom didn’t want to run away from civilization and give up all the luxuries associated with it. She thought they should change their identities instead and hide out in a smaller town, one far away from the capitol of North Amerie.”