All of a sudden, a large middle-aged man lumbers into my path. I stop abruptly. His shirt is untucked, and his pants are baggy. His jacket, if he ever had one, is long gone. Dark hair sticks out all over his head. And is that…? Yes, that’s a leaf in his hair—green, crumpled, with a tender new stem. His gaze jumps all over the spacious lobby, and he upends a flask to his mouth.

My spine tingles…with what? Recognition? Familiarity? And yet I’m utterly certain I’ve never seen this man before.

Without warning, the sequence of memories slams into me, the images rolling through my mind like a movie.

Wineglasses clinking. Smoke curling in the air. Archie pushes through the crowd, wearing a necktie patterned with the chemical elements. Zeke follows, his shoulders broad and powerful in his crisp navy suit. They park themselves against the leather-padded wall, the epitome of man-cave decor, and chat with each other.

A large man with wild brown hair—complete with a leaf—steps menacingly up to my father. Dad visibly swallows and gestures with a tumbler filled with amber-colored liquid. He says something I can’t hear, and the man snatches the glass from Dad’s hand and hurls it against the wall. The tumbler bounces off harmlessly, but the ice and liquid drench the shoulder of a white-haired woman.

The room falls quiet, and the man shoves Dad’s chest.

“Apologies would’ve been inadequate twenty years ago,” he snarls. “But now? They’re nothing but an insult.”

He stalks away, and Dad sags against the wall next to Zeke, right where the tumbler hit.

The reel ends. The man moves along. And I’m shaking, shaking, shaking, despite the warmth created by a couple hundred bodies.

This. This is the future I avoided. This is the future I changed when I tore up the reception tickets.

My older self isn’t here right now. How am I seeing an event that must’ve come from her timeline, before I destroyed the tickets? Her consciousness must have somehow blended with mine. Maybe now I have the power to access both timelines.

More importantly: Who is that bushy-haired man? Dad’s old lab partner? He’s got to be.

A million goose bumps pop up along my skin. Dad spoke of cutting-edge research; he talked of a lifetime of regrets. All of a sudden, I’m very sure that this man is instrumental in helping the Maker invent the virus.

It’s just like the Voice said. It’s looking more and more likely that I’ll get some much-needed clarification at the awards ceremony.