“I meant it,” I finally say. “But I’ve told you before. I don’t date in high school.”

“You won’t give me a straight answer. Now you’re sending mixed signals.” He pulls in front of my house and turns to me, his gaze searching my eyes, my cheeks, my mouth. “Are you trying to make me lose my mind?”

Again, I consider. I’m not in the sense he means, but my older self does want to kill him. So yeah, she probably wouldn’t mind if his brains were splattered on the concrete.

“Yes,” I whisper. To soften the blow, or maybe because I just want to touch him again, I put my hand on his cheek. The touch is brief. I barely feel the rough skin over his jaw before he jerks his head away.

His eyes blaze under the shine of the streetlamp. “You’re succeeding.”

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

I dream.

I’m in a high-speed vehicle screeching around a curve, too fast, too wide. The car spins wildly into space and then free-falls in slow motion. My body strains against the seat belt, and my hair flies around my ears. Loose coins and paper clips float in the air, as though there is no gravity. Delighted, I turn to Bandit to point out this oddity. Instead of a muscular teenage boy, I find a little girl, dark ringlets shot through with gold, bark-brown eyes and burn scars decorating her forehead. “Mommy,” she says, distinctly and clearly.

Then the dream shifts.

I’m stuffing the little girl into a wood-burning furnace, along with a stack of papers. I alternate, sticking in a sheet of paper and then ripping off a piece of the girl. I’ve burned her nose, both ears, and a piece of her cheek before I realize what I’m doing. By then, it’s too late. An ember catches onto her hair and spreads through her body. She blackens and disintegrates into ash. Just like Charlie’s research. Just like my future.

The dream shifts yet again.

I’m kissing Bandit, the way I did in the car. Hot, hungry licks of his tongue across my lips, inside my mouth, until I feel like I’m in the furnace, too, being burned alive. We’re driving along a windy mountain road, but Bandit keeps giving me quick, appreciative glances. “I know I should keep my eyes on the road,” he says, “but I just can’t.” And this makes me burn even hotter.

But then I’m kissing Charlie instead of Bandit. I struggle to get away from him, kick and fight to break free of his grasp. The car spirals down, down, down into a forest of trees, while Bandit watches from behind a set of iron bars.

The dream doesn’t so much as shift as it melts away.