I close my eyes, remembering my future daughter. Remembering the black hole of despair that has replaced Malice’s heart. “Every time my older self came to the past, her one aim was to destroy. Erase the research, damage a relationship, eliminate a life. Her pain narrowed her vision, killed off her idealism. Her only strategy to combat violence was with more violence.” I open my eyes. Look straight at my brother. His shoulders are hunched, and he appears smaller than before. Younger. “Not once did she try to believe in you, to believe in humanity, a little more.”

I fill my lungs. “Her final mission was to trick me into killing Bandit. She thought this was our last chance to save the world, but she’s wrong. Because I have every moment for the rest of my life—however short—to believe in you. And I’m starting right now.”

With shaking hands and a steady heart, I tighten my grip on the gun. “I won’t choose you over Bandit. You are my brother. He will be my husband and the father of my child. Whether you like it or not, he matters, in every version of my future. You have to find a way to accept that.”

Bandit makes a gurgling sound in his throat, and his eyes bulge, probably from the news of our future marriage and child.

But my whole and undivided attention is on my brother’s face, so pale that his freckles stand out like stars.

“Your fight for the future can end right here, right now,” I say. “If I die, there will be no one to stop you from inventing the virus. No one to betray you because you think I’ve chosen someone else.”

Bandit pulls so hard that his wrists pop free of the jump rope. Off-balance, he falls forward to his knees. It’s a sweet gesture, but it’s too late.

I run my free hand along the barrel of the gun. So smooth, so cold. “I believe in you, Archie. I will always believe in you, no matter what the future tells me. I believe you don’t want millions of people to die. I believe you will remember what I do tonight, and it will remind you to be the brother I know. The one I love so much.”

A thin teenage boy no longer stands before me. Instead, all I see is eight-year-old Archie’s gleeful smile as we survey the platters of microwaved pizza rolls, the first meal we ever cooked. All I hear is his high voice as he chatters animatedly to our stuffed animals, preparing them for spaceflight. All I feel is his small hand gripping mine as we linger on our school’s front steps, our mother late yet again.