Memories from a Different Future: Jump When Ready, Book 2 (13 page)

Ian shook his head even though the gesture didn’t truly
reflect his thoughts. “I don’t know. Sure, I guess.”

“Well, in my experience it certainly can’t hurt to listen
to those kinds of feelings. To act on them according to instinct.”

Ian sipped his tea and thought back to this morning.
“Something like that happened earlier today.”

Julie’s eyes widened and she raised her eyebrows with
interest. “What was it?”

“Something my mother said. It was totally weird but she
asked me not to go to the mall. Like something bad was going to happen.” Ian
supposed it possible that Julie picked up on something that was going to happen
there too. In fact, that would be a lot less strange than his mother getting a
feeling about it. Julie was supposedly psychic, after all.

“Did you do as she asked?”

Ian nodded. “I didn’t really understand but I decided not
to go. I went to Green Lake instead. Is that what this is about?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Julie said. “It might be. Do you
know if anything happened there today?” The way she said it was almost hopeful
and Ian couldn’t understand why that might be.

“I don’t think so. At least I didn’t hear anything.” Ian
sat back on the sofa, trying to at least appear relaxed although he didn’t feel
that way. In fact, he couldn’t help feel nervous. “I kind of get the feeling
you’re not telling me something. Sorry, but that’s just how it seems.”

Julie’s face reddened but she didn’t seem offended. More,
she looked nervous too. She thought for a moment, then said, “When you came here
for a reading, there was something I didn’t tell you. I just wasn’t sure about
it, especially at first.”

It wasn’t like Ian had forgotten that moment. Or the next
day when she’d refused to come to the door. “Was that when you got a feeling
about something happening?”

Julie hesitated, then nodded. “There’s an aspect to what
I do that can be troubling. As far as I’m concerned, I see it as an ethical
issue. Should I tell someone if I think something bad might be about to happen?
Especially, if I don’t know what it is specifically?” She took another moment
to formulate her words. “For example, if what I felt might frighten someone but
for no reason that I could explain. Would it do them any good?”

Ian shook his head. “No, I guess not. I mean, what would
be the point?”

Julie closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Exactly. I
mean, unless I can offer something specific, all I’m causing is needless worry.
Add to that, sometimes the things I see might not take place for years.
Intuition isn’t an exact science, after all.”

Ian didn’t know what to say so he waited. He felt both a
little frightened and at the same time wondered if she might be a slightly
unstable. He wished he’d never grabbed her number off that telephone pole.
There
was a feeling he probably should have acted upon.

“The other day, something else happened,” Julie said.
“When I was giving a reading. I told myself I shouldn’t tell you. I told
them
I wouldn’t tell you. That it wasn’t our place. But now, I don’t know.” She ran
a trembling hand through her hair, pulling it back.

“Them?”

“Yes, people that knew you on the other side.”

Ian perched forward, ostensibly for a sip of tea but
really more preparing to stand. This had gotten weird enough already. As far as
he was concerned, he needed to get out of there at the first opportunity and
never look back. Lesson learned: Next time you see a flyer advertising psychic
readings, keep walking.

“Why do you think they contacted you?” Ian wasn’t sure
what else to say.

Julie leveled him with a serious gaze. “They were
concerned for your well-being. They asked me to tell you. As I said, I wasn’t
sure it was my place to do that but, upon thinking about it more, it seemed
only fair. That’s why I called you, so I could contact them again with you
here.”

Ian set his mug down on her coffee table. “Are you going
to do that now?”

“With your permission, of course. It isn’t my place to
open channels of this nature if it’s something you’d rather I didn’t do.”

Ian nodded, pretending to give it some thought.
“Honestly, I don’t know if I’m all that comfortable with the idea. Besides, I
didn’t really expect to be coming here today. I sort of have to be somewhere
soon.”

“Oh, of course.”

It surprised Ian a little, the look of relief on Julie’s
face. He hated to think poorly of another person but he really had assumed her
calling up these supposed spirits was exactly what she wanted to do. It might
even be some method she used for getting people to continue seeing her.

Ian got to his feet. “Thank you for letting me know,
though. I appreciate your taking the time.”

Julie stood as well. “You’re welcome. And listen to your
feelings about things, okay? If you get a feeling about something, don’t just
ignore it.”

Ian offered a smile. She really did seem like a nice
person. Maybe she was just taking this psychic thing a little too seriously. “I
will,” he said. “If I get a feeling about something, I won’t ignore it.”

He was almost out the door when she spoke again, her
voice soft. “Ian?”

He turned, not at all prepared to see her eyes glistening.

“Please be careful, okay?”

~~~

Ian started his car and sat thinking about what Julie had
just said. He didn’t doubt that she meant it, that she believed in whatever
she’d experienced. His last look at her misting eyes had confirmed that. Still,
none of it made any sense. People who knew him from the other side? Spirits
worried about his well-being? Yeah, okay. Sure.

He shook his head to dispel the thoughts. Time to go.
Time to erase this strange little episode from his life. And not look back,
definitely. He turned on the radio to hear some music and pulled away from the
curb.

Hour By Hour

“Maybe we’ve been coming at this
from the wrong angle,” Henry said, before swallowing another bite of his Philly
cheesesteak. “We’ve been staying close to Ian the whole time. Maybe that’s not
the answer.”

Nikki didn’t give him a hard time about scarfing down
food this time. They needed to eat and rest on this side while they had the
chance. By her guess, they’d only been gone an hour or two, Earth time. She
hoped her guess was somewhere close to right. “What are you thinking?”

“The kid who actually did it,” Henry said. “What about we
try tapping into him before it’s too late?”

Jamie leaned in over his plate of pasta. “Damn, you might
be right. Good idea.” He turned to Nikki. “Why didn’t you think of that?”

Nikki’s face grew warm. “Well, of course it did occur to
me that—”

“Oh, come on.” Jamie rolled his eyes.

Nikki stared at him, her gaze flat. “What was I going to
say?”

Jamie frowned. “That you also thought we should try
following that kid we saw at the mall.”

Nikki nodded. “Exactly. I’m surprised it didn’t occur to
you too. Oh, well.”

Henry burst out laughing, the message in his eyes being
he got it. Nikki just loved pushing those buttons—particularly for Jamie and
Simon since they so often took the bait. “What do you think, Nikki? Can we find
him somehow? We don’t know anything about him.”

Even before Henry asked, she’d started wondering the same
thing. They’d never before tried locking onto someone without some sort of
direct experience first. And this time, they’d had none at all. As visceral as
those moments had been, they hadn’t happened yet. Essentially, each time they’d
been watching a 3-D movie about some future event.

“We don’t even know his name,” Nikki said.

Jamie tapped on his chin. “Do we need to?”

“Honestly, I have no idea.”

“Let’s give it a shot,” Henry said. “Something has to go
right eventually.”

Nikki had never known Henry to be pessimistic but she
could hardly blame him. So far, nothing
had
gone right and they were
definitely running out of time.

Instinctively, the three of them did something they
hadn’t had any reason to since they’d been desperately trying to rescue Henry’s
sister. They closed their eyes, reached out and took hold of each other’s
hands. Moments later, they stood in a school hallway and Nikki winced against
the clanging of a bell.

“I always hated that sound,” she said.

“Except for the last one of the day,” Jamie said.

“How about that—they still use actual bells,” Henry said.

Students started spilling from doorways, the throng soon
choking the hall as they jostled one another on their way to their next class.
Nikki immediately became uncomfortable—more uncomfortable than usual when this
sort of thing happened—as some of these kids unknowingly passed through her.
She knew that the others in her group experienced something like it, but for
her the sensation was more pronounced. What she picked up on now was an almost
uniformly pervasive guardedness and hostility—a mixture of fear, anger,
resentment and distrust.

The emotional eddy was enough to make her feel queasy and
she pressed against a wall to get out of the way. Apparently, Henry and Jamie
felt similarly since they lined the wall alongside her.

Maybe it was because the door next to them offered the
easiest escape, or maybe it was because of the inexplicable sense of curiosity
that overcame her, but Nikki decided that’s where they needed to go. She dodged
inside the classroom and took a sudden breath.

“That’s definitely him,” Henry said.

“Damn, we did it,” Jamie said.

No doubt about it, there he was—the kid whose eyes had
haunted Nikki since that first time they’d jumped forward. He was just about to
leave the classroom, backpack slung over his shoulder, when the man behind him
spoke.

“Emilio, hang on a second.”

The kid, Emilio, stopped but didn’t turn around to face
his teacher. “Come on, Mr. Posten. I’ll be late for my next class.”

Mr. Posten smiled even though Emilio kept his back
turned. “You already know my super power. I’m a teacher, therefore I can write
hall passes.”

His words actually had the intended effect, which
surprised Nikki a little. Emilio smiled. But he erased the smile again before
turning around. “What is it this time?”

“Same as last time. Plus there’s something else I wanted
to ask you about. First, have you talked to your guidance counselor yet? You
have Mrs. Gonzalves, if I’m not mistaken. And I know I’m not mistaken since I
spoke to her last week.”

Emilio plunked his backpack down on Mr. Posten’s desk
with a thud that was almost certainly meant to be disrespectful. “Then you must
know I haven’t talked to her.”

Mr. Posten eyed the backpack as if he might shove it onto
the floor. Nikki picked up on an anger in him, one he fought to control at all
times, like water about to boil but always somehow kept simmering. “Like I
said, it was last week. It occurred to me that you might have managed to
squeeze her into your busy calendar between now and then.”

“Didn’t happen, obviously.”

Mr. Posten sighed. “Got it. Listen, let’s not do this,
okay? Your homies aren’t here right now. I promise not to tell them you’re an
intelligent kid who might still have a future. Deal?”

Emilio hesitated, then sighed too. He cast his gaze at
the floor for a moment before raising his eyes again. Mr. Posten must have
chosen the right words because Emilio’s eyes were misting. He kept blinking as
he struggled to maintain control. “Deal.”

“Good. Listen. Let me take a guess. You can’t go see Mrs.
Gonsalvez because the homies would know. Got it. I understand. Been there. Just
nod if I’m on the right track.”

Emilio nodded but the effect was more like he hung his
head.

Mr. Posten closed his eyes and breathed deeply through
his nose, keeping that water simmering. “Yeah, sure. We’ll find a way of dealing
with them.”

“How?” Emilio said.

“Hour by hour. Day by day. Until they’re part of your
past. I did it and you can too. Listen, Emilio, I believe in you.”

Emilio shook his head, tears coming to his eyes. He
looked at the smeared window and the gray day outside, then rubbed the back of
his hand across his face. “I don’t know, Mr. Posten.”

“I do. I have another idea. I have a friend who owns a
restaurant. He says he’s looking for a dishwasher. I was thinking you could
talk to him. Work there on weekends or even a few nights. That would give you
some space, some time away from them. Also, it would look good on your college
applications.”

Emilio reached for his backpack and hefted it onto his
shoulder. “College, Mr. P? Do I look like I’m going to college?”

Mr. Posted held his hand up in a gesture saying, please
wait, listen. “Sure, it’s possible. It’s entirely possible.”

Emilio took a step away. “We have no money. My father’s
been gone for as long as I can remember. I have a little brother who needs me
to look after him. My best grade since elementary school is a C. I’m not going
to college, Mr. P. But at least you got something right. My mother’s a freaking
waitress so maybe I can go wash dishes for the rest of my life.”

Emilio turned on his heel and strode toward the door.

“Emilio, wait. You can do this.”

Emilio spun to face Mr. Posten again. The tears were gone
now, his eyes locked in resolve. “Just because you did, doesn’t mean I can.
It’s already too late, Mr. P. I’ll see you around.”

~~~

Emilio was no sooner out of the
school when a car pulled up alongside him, driven by a boy whose smile lacked
any trace of warmth. The driver nodded toward the passenger seat. “Mealy, time
to talk.”

Emilio got into the car.

“Just guessing that must be one of Emilio’s homies,”
Henry said, as they passed through the door into the back seat.

“You guessed right,” Nikki said. “And I’m not exactly
getting a great feeling about him.”

“Diego, what a surprise,” Emilio said. “Never would have
expected to see you today.”

Diego grinned and pressed his foot to the pedal. Clearly,
this was the kind of school where someone peeling out of the parking lot was
low on the list of concerns. He turned music up loud as drove—the message
clearly being, while they had to talk, Diego would decide the moment.
Meanwhile, Emilio stared out the window but Nikki got the feeling he wasn’t
taking in much of anything. She didn’t have to read him to feel his
despondence.

Before long, Diego cut a sharp right into an alley. He
pulled in behind a brick warehouse, its boarded windows tagged so many times
the effect was like someone had poured paint over the building.

Diego killed the engine. He didn’t say anything as he
reached into his top pocket and withdrew a joint. He lit it, closing his eyes
as he took a hit, then went to pass it to Emilio.

“Not today,” Emilio said.

Diego cocked his head. “There I was thinking it might be
good for the nerves. Big day tomorrow, right bro?”

“I’m not nervous. Just not into it right now. I have
stuff to do.”

Diego shrugged. “Okay. Stuff to do. Sounds important.
What kind of stuff? Like maybe trying to run? You know what happens to
pussies.”

As Nikki continued to listen, all of it started coming
together. Now, she understood that trapped look she’d seen in Emilio’s eyes
each time. Before, she’d thought he was trapped in the event unfolding around
him. That wasn’t the case. He’d been trapped for a long time. The trap was
invisible but he might as well be encaged.

Emilio spoke softly but his voice held an edge Nikki felt
against her skin. “Try calling me a pussy again and see what happens.”

Diego’s head jerked in Emilio’s direction, his hand
twitching like he might strike. Instead, he grinned that icy grin. “Nice, bro.
Seriously, I felt that. I think that’s the first time Marcos would have been
proud of you. Maybe you can pull this deal off.”

The mere mention of that name sent an emotional flare out
from Emilio. It took just moments for Nikki to lock on and experience the
images rippling through his mind—hundreds of them hitting her at the same time.
Without thinking about it, she reached up to wipe her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Henry said.

Nikki nodded but didn’t have time to explain before Diego
spoke again.

“So, you have a plan, right?”

“Yeah, I have a plan,” Emilio said.

“Now is the time to tell me, bro. So, like one of the
shops in the east hood or what’s the deal? I love watching those mothers go all
mental every time we—”

“Cyprus Hill,” Emilio said.

A moment passed in silence. Diego flicked what was left
of his joint out the window. “Cyprus Hill Mall? Like where the rich people go?
Is that what we’re talking about here?”

Emilio sighed. “Not the entire mall, obviously.”

Diego hesitated, then laughed. “Yeah, I get that,
asswipe.
Obviously
.”

“Actually, he didn’t get it at all,” Nikki said. “Just
saying.”

“Kind of suspected,” Jamie said. “I’m having one of those
moments when I wish I could somehow force him over to our side.”

“Let’s just leave him here for now,” Henry said. “Feel
like sitting across from him in the food court?”

Emilio turned, his eyes meeting Diego’s. “One store in
Cyprus Hill, is what I’m thinking. And I’m also thinking people we know won’t
forget it. You in?”

“What do you mean, am I in? This is your big day, bro.
Man the hell up.”

Emilio shrugged. “Cool with me. I was just thinking this
hasn’t been done before. Sure, everyone hits the liquor stores and the
mini-marts. I’ll be the first South Ender to hit a jewelry store. I’m totally
fine with being legendary on my own.”

Diego frowned. “What about security? You’re talking about
a freaking jewelry store.”

“Yeah, in a mall. Which means they have the same security
as everyone else. Ever see an armed guard hanging out in one of those places?”

A few seconds ticked by, then Diego chuckled. “Nice, bro.
That’s some genius shit there.”

This time, Emilio grinned, keeping his gaze fixed
straight at the windshield. “Gonna be some fat cash sitting there. Maybe I’ll
buy you a pack of smokes or something.”

Diego leaned back in his seat and stared up at the
ceiling. “What time?”

It was Emilio’s turn to chuckle. “So, you in?”

“I don’t know, maybe I am. What time?”

“I always liked the sound of high noon.” Emilio swung the
car door open and got out. He turned to look back in at Diego. “Don’t pussy
out.”

Diego narrowed his eyes but still managed his grin. “I’m
thinking Marcos would be proud right now.”

“I
know
he would be,” Emilio said.

~~~

Nikki watched Emilio walk off, turn a corner at the end of
the alley and disappear. She turned to Henry and Jamie, sitting next to her in
the back seat of Diego’s car. “I just need to be sure about something. Either
time, did you guys see this dipshit at the mall?” She pointed at the back of
Diego’s head as he started the engine.

Henry and Jamie both shook their heads.

Nikki thought about it, hoping maybe something had just
shifted. After all, Martha said things could still change—that there were
variables they couldn’t know about. At the same time, it might just be that
each time they’d witnessed the scene at the mall, Diego had been there and they
just hadn’t seen him. Or maybe he hadn't shown up. Nikki corrected
herself—maybe he won’t show up. Either way, Emilio was gone now and she wasn’t
sure what to do next. She decided on what seemed like the most logical thing.

“We should probably keep following Emilio,” she said.