It’s just me in here. No one else.

Disappointment floods me, which is ridiculous. There’s always only been me for the bulk of my seventeen years. Do I actually feel…lonely…now that I’ve reverted to my normal state?

Yeah, I do. Because for long moments at a time, while I was blended with Malice’s mind, we merged into the same person.

And I miss her, in a weird, nonsensical kind of way.

“Well?” Cristela’s impatient voice intrudes on my thoughts. “Did it work? Did you go to the future?”

I sit up so quickly, the room spins, and I have to press both hands against my temples until the furniture rights itself.

“Yes.” That one word is woefully inadequate in capturing what happened. “How long was I gone?”

She glances at her wrist, bare except for a few freckles. “Two, three minutes?”

My stomach tightens. What will it be like to see Bandit again? He didn’t travel to the future. He has no idea what we’ll become to each other. To him, I’m just a girl he’s kissed who tried to kill him. But to me, he’s…so much more.

To me, he’s everything.

Except he’s not here, slouched against the brightly colored walls or fiddling with the dangling spider plants.

Only two minutes have passed. Where did he go?

“Spill it,” Cristela demands. “I want to know everything. What you saw. How it felt. What you did.”

Automatically, I start talking. This is her research, after all. She figured out a way for me to get to the future; the least I can do is give her information.

“I’m not sure why you lived the future, instead of observing it,” Cristela admits when I’ve told her everything. “Maybe it’s because you dove directly into the time stream, instead of zipping your consciousness to hers? One more thing I can look forward to in my research. That, and figuring out how Malice was able to control your arm when you gave Bandit the cupcake.”

I scan the room as she talks, from the vases with the petal cutouts to the waist-to-ceiling windows, as though I expect to find Bandit’s tall frame folded like a pretzel.

But I don’t. Because he’s not here.

Maybe it’s just as well. My insides churn with a mix of sorrow, anger, and love. But a single piece of knowledge rises above all that emotion.

Do I dare share it with Cristela? She’s little more than an acquaintance now, but in the future, she’s my ally. More than that, she’s my friend.

“In order to save the world, I need to kill somebody,” I say slowly. “Bandit…or my brother.”

She whistles, long and low. “That’s quite a dilemma.”