“No!” I flush, lowering my arms. “I meant the truth. That’s what you want, right? What we both want. I couldn’t explain before, but now I’m ready to tell you all of it.” I stop, suddenly unsure. “That is, if you don’t mind talking to a criminal.”

“You’re not a criminal, Alice.” He pushes a hand through his hair, pausing while an elderly man clomps by with a walker. “I got rid of the gun. Buried it in the woods, after I wiped off your fingerprints. That doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend you didn’t sneak into my house, intending to shoot me.” His eyes flash. “But I know you don’t belong in jail.”

Something squeezes inside my chest. Even after everything I’ve done, he still believes in me. My older self was right. I shouldn’t have let myself get close to this guy. My feelings for him are way too soft. Too dangerous. If not for my physical well-being, then to my heart.

“I was wrong about you,” I say softly. “You’re not the most obnoxious boy alive. Not even close. Instead, you’re the most loyal. The most true. And I’m sorry I didn’t see it before.”

I swallow hard. Part of me wants to weep at all the things that went wrong between us, but I can’t indulge my regrets. Not yet. Not when the future still hangs in the balance.

“Let’s sit,” I say briskly and guide him to a wrought-iron bench.

A few drops of water still cling to the iron, left over from this morning’s showers, but the sun is shining now, the air warm and breezy. I smell cinnamon. The scent wafts off him, stronger than usual, so he must’ve just chewed some gum or brushed his teeth.

I’m dying to know which, but I can’t ask. I’m too scared he’ll shut me down.

Instead, I tell him everything I know. About the Voice, about our future. From the highly contagious virus that will render people allergic to the sun, to the millions of people dying, to my mission of saving the world by killing the Maker.

I explain Charlie’s role in developing the virus, how the Voice convinced me that Bandit was my target, my subsequent discovery that my older self was coming to me out of order.

As I talk, a chaos of emotions crosses his face. Skepticism, shock—and then belief. My account is too detailed; it explains perfectly my strange behavior and fits in with what he already knows. I see the moment his face changes, when he crosses the line from doubt to acceptance.