I don’t know what the Voice has planned for Lalana. But I have no doubt what would happen if she was caught with a bag of weed in her locker.

“No way,” I say. “I don’t care if you’re me. My loyalty to the future doesn’t extend to betraying my best friend. Sorry, not the slightest bit sorry.”

I march to my own locker and toss the baggie on the shelf, next to Loki. For what comes next, I’ll need my hands free.

Tightening my stomach, I dig my toes into the bottoms of my sneakers. “Bring it.”

She laughs. “Bring it? What is it?”

“You know,” I say. “The electricity. The pain. I can take more than you can dish out.”

“I’m not going to hurt myself.” She has the gall to sound horrified. Seriously? When half my brain cells are still strewn across the school’s back lawn like ash from the Kilauea volcano? “We’re on the same side here. We’re the same person. What will it take to convince you of that?”

“I want answers,” I say immediately, even though there’s nothing she can say that will make me double-cross my best friend.

But for once, I have the advantage, and I’m not going to let this opportunity pass me by. “I want to know everything. This person I’m supposed to stop. How Bandit figures in. Lalana’s involvement, if any. Also, if I’m married in the future, I want to know if my future husband is cute.”

“Oh, your hubby’s adorable.” Her tone is a cross between amused and exasperated. “Just who we’ve always wanted, even if we didn’t always know it. You broke your wrist last year, and he braided your hair for six weeks.”

“Nice. I think I’ll keep him. What about the rest?”

She pauses. A senior guy appears in the hallway, bopping his head to the beats in his earbuds.

I slam my locker door shut and hurry down the hall. Normally, I’d say hello to a fellow student in the hallway. But I also wouldn’t normally have a plastic baggie of marijuana in my possession.

“All in good time,” my older self says. “Come on, Alice. I know you’ve thought about this. After that last Avengers movie, you developed a fascination with time travel. In fact, you watched every movie they referenced in Endgame. Surely you understand that one wrong move, one detail too many, and we could create ripples that will change the future in ways we never intended. For the sake of humanity, you’ll have to trust me.”