That voice. Familiar. Who…? I craned my neck but it was out of sight.

“Vidal!” Darren stood, face reddening. “Get your useless ass out of my lab.”

“I—I—” Marco stuttered.

“Out!” Darren roared.

The door whooshed closed.

“Christ.” Darren sat down hard, rubbing his scalp and muttering. “Nepotism everywhere you turn around here.”

Marco. I’d kind of forgotten about him, but I was starting to think… Maybe… “What about my telepathy?”

“Stronger,” Darren said. “Which brings me back to my point. You’re going to project your visions to me from now on. No holos, and no keeping shit secret anymore.”

I glanced at Tair. His face was slowly relaxing. He sat slumped.

Fading.

“I’ll show you.” The words came out breathy as I tore my gaze from Tair. I was running out of time. “Whatever you want. Just save him.”

Darren eyed me, gaze calculating. “Show me and then I’ll call the med team.”

“He’s already dying.” I tugged against the bonds so hard the table squealed.

“Then hurry.”

My fingers and toes bunched in frustration. Like it was that easy? I could barely see anything right now and Darren wouldn’t save Tair if all I could give him were blobby, vague timeghosts of nothing.

I let my eyes slip out of focus, hoping it would help me grasp at a page, but the seconds kept ticking and I couldn’t ignore Tair’s failing readings.

“I’m not impressed yet,” Darren said.

If he untied me, I’d impress him with my fist in his face.

No.

Getting mad wasn’t helping. Getting frustrated wouldn’t make it better. “You have to take me off the drugs. Or give me a hit of adrenaline or something. I can’t focus.”

He ripped a patch off my neck. I flinched at the sting, but he rummaged in a drawer behind me and slapped a fresh patch on the same spot. “Give me your best shot.”

Blood rushed to my head. The blurs got sharper and sharper. More and more timeghosts popped up now that my brain was chugging back to normal speeds, but the ghosts wouldn’t stop flowing in. More and more and more of them.

I couldn’t shake my head to clear them this time.

Tair screaming and running and dying; I struggle against ties and machines and scientists, then I’m running and crying and struggling against different ties and machines and hands and faces; Darren grinning with glee and then wincing and gripping his temples; Doctor Nagi pushing back his chair, his eyes going wide; storms and fires raging and howling and ringing in my ears; Marco crawling along a white corridor: “I don’t want to see it. Make it stop. Make her stop.”

Gasping in the present, I tried to take a deep breath.

Make it stop? I wished I could.