Rewind (Vanish Book Three) (3 page)

He didn't say anything else;
he just turned around and ignored me.

I headed over to the empty
table, and sat down. Then, I noticed someone across the lunch room.
Someone I knew, but she never went to school here. This was a
change that I was happy to see. I never got a chance to say
good-bye to her, but she sat just two tables in front of me. Then I
realized—this wasn’t the Annabelle I knew, and she definitely
didn’t know me. I sighed. Oh what the hell, I needed to make
some
new
friends
anyway.

I walked over to her table.
She was alone except for the boy who sat next to her. His hair was
light blonde, and his eyes were a brilliant blue. I sat down across
from her. She looked at me almost as if she was afraid.

“
Hi, I’m Scarlett,” I said
as she looked over.

“
I know.”

“
You know?” I said with
excitement.

“
Of course
I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are.”
Oh, right.

“
You don’t mind if I sit
with you, do you?”

“
No, I guess not,” she said
under her breath, never looking me in the eyes.

“
I know I used to be awful,
but I don’t want to be that person anymore,” I
explained.

“
Okay,” she answered back,
still not looking at me.

It was killing me. What had
I done to the person who’d been one of my closest friends in the
future, to make her dislike me so much?

“
Please give me a chance, I
promise this isn’t a trick or anything. I’m tired of those girls,
and I need to make some better friends.” She looked up at me, and
as she did, her expression changed. She felt my
sincerity.

“
Alright, everyone deserves
a second chance,” she smiled.

“
So, how long have you lived
in Sunny Bay?” I wondered.

“
A few months now… I’m
Annabelle, by the way, and this is Xavier.”

“
Hello,” I said as I looked
over at him. He looked down and didn’t say a word.

“
He doesn’t talk, not even
to me, but hey, company is company, right? So, what about you, how
long have you lived here?” she asked.

“
It’s a really long story,”
I smiled, hoping one day I would be able to tell her. The bell
rang, and we all got up. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” I
asked.

“
Sure,” she smiled and
walked away.

The rest of the day was
long. Once sixth hour came, I realized why Rose had said I knew Mr.
Quinn better than her. He was my English teacher. The substitute
didn’t want to do anything, so we just watched a movie, but I
didn’t pay attention. All I could think about was Grace. If she was
alive—from what Dante’s dad said— she might not be for much longer.
I hadn’t seen her anywhere though, she wasn’t in any of my classes.
I hadn’t seen her in the halls or at lunch, so where was
she?

After school was over, I was
sure to make it back to Rose’s car right away. She sounded kind of
fed up with me, and I could see why. If I was friends with those
horrible girls, and I’d put up with them this long, I must have
been pretty awful myself.

“
Hey,” I said as I got in
the car.

“
Oh, hey,” She replied as
she put the car in reverse.

“
So, I was wondering… do you
know Grace Moore?”

“
No, I don’t think so,
why?”

“
I was just wondering,” I
sighed.

“
Ugh, I have so much
homework tonight. It’s going to take me forever,” she
whined.

“
Yeah, so do I.” It sucked;
I was so tired from trying to keep this up; I wanted to go to sleep
right there.

When we got home, I ran
upstairs and did my homework with Rose. She was starting to warm up
to me a little bit, maybe she was starting to see that I changed—it
was a good, and bad thing.

Everything started to get foggy, and
her voice was barely audible.

“
Uh, I need to go to the
bathroom,” I announced as I staggered to the bathroom. I sat on the
floor just in time, soon after, I was sucked into a vision— the
difference between the rest of them? I remembered this
night.

It was all crystal clear; I
could feel the texture of the couch as I sat waiting for Grace to
arrive. Ann was working late and might not come home at all; Grace
agreed to come keep me company.

The doorbell rang, and I jumped up to
answer it.

"Hey," she smiled as I opened the
door.

"Hey," I replied as I shut
the door. She dropped her bag and fell backwards onto the couch.
"What's up?" I asked, concerned.

"Oh nothing, it’s just—" she shook her
head, "never mind."

"Come on, you can tell me," I
persuaded.

"Okay," she sat up and took a deep
breath. "Weird things have been happening to me lately."

"Like?"

"It's really not important."
She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.

"What's been happening Grace?" I didn’t
say that before, before I would have just listened if she said it
was nothing, now I knew better.

"I think someone's... following
me."

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't know for sure, okay? I'm
probably just going crazy or something."

"No, I believe you,” I assured
her.

"Whenever I'm alone outside I hear
footsteps, and I swear I've seen someone looking through my—” Her
eyes widened as she stared at the window.

"What?" I asked, but she didn’t look at
me; she just stared at the door, like she was waiting for
something.

"Wake up!" My eyes popped
open.

"Rose," I grumbled.

"Are you okay?” she asked with
urgency.

"I was getting closer to finding out
what happened to Grace," I nagged.

"I'm worried about you…” she quavered,
“… you’re saying all these weird things, and you’re acting
different, and now I just found you passed out in the
bathroom.”

“
I can’t explain this, I’m
sorry.”

My eyes widened as I stared
behind her, it wasn’t helping my case, but I couldn’t control it.
Standing behind her, was Dante’s ghost.

Chapter 3:
Accident

I jumped up and ran over to
him, staring up at his face.
This
was the Dante that knew me, that loved me. I
couldn’t say anything. Rose stood across the room staring at me in
wonder. I took a deep breath.

“
I’m going for a walk,” I
said as I walked out the door with Dante’s ghost following behind
me.

“
Are you sure you’re okay?”
She called after me.

“
Uh, yeah, yeah. I’m fine.
I’ll see you later.”

As soon as I was out the
door, I thought about turning invisible. I couldn’t walk down the
street looking like I was talking to myself. I went behind a bush
and closed my eyes. It wasn’t as easy as it was before, it was
almost a reflex before, but now I needed to concentrate. It wasn’t
an immediate thing anymore. First, my skin disappeared in patches;
it was agonizing. Next, the rest of me vanished. I held back my
screams as I lay in the grass. Weird, it never hurt before when I
went invisible, only when I turned back. I took a deep breath and
looked up at him.

“
I’ve really missed you,” I
sighed.

“
I know; I’ve missed you
too, but that’s not why I’m here,” he explained. “Something bad is
going to happen, and I don’t know how to stop it.”

“
What, what’s going to
happen?” I asked.

“
The Alliance,
they—“

“
What do you know Dante?” I
pleaded.

“
I think this is another one
of those things you have to figure out alone, what I can tell you
though, is the only chance for us is if you get the past me on your
side. Get me to believe you Scarlett, get anyone you can to help,
you’ll need it.”

“
He’s not you,” I cried.
“Everything has changed; nothing is what it was before.”

“
He is me, the only version
of me you’ll ever have, and I’m sorry,” he said as he started to
fade away.

“
Dante, no wait!” I
yelled.

“
What?” he asked as he
touched my cheek.

“
I have so many questions
left. What’s going on in the future? How is everyone? Do they know
what happened?”

“
You don’t need to worry
about the future; you need to worry about right now.”

“
Rose won’t take me back to
the future,” I whined.

“
Rose is in the future, for
now anyway.”

“
Am I still in the future,
too?” I wondered. I didn’t understand, could I still exist in the
future even though I went back to the past?

“
No, you left. You got here
on your own.”

“
No, that’s not possible,” I
objected.

“
I know you can do this; I
know you’ll find a way,” his deep-brown eyes didn’t betray him; I
couldn’t tell what was going on, or what he was worried about. I
didn’t understand why he couldn’t tell me, I could use all the help
I could get.

“
No I can’t… I don’t have
control over any of my powers anymore, can’t you see? Isn’t it
obvious?”

“
You will realize what you
need to do,” he promised.

“
Dante, why are you being
like this, why can’t you just tell me?”

“
Because I don’t know, I’m
sorry. I’ll see you again soon.” And he was gone.

I fell to the ground; I
didn’t understand what he expected of me. How was I supposed to
save the future, when I was stuck in the past? How was I supposed
to get the past Dante on my side, when he despised me? And what
revelation would come to me, telling me what to do? I had no one to
talk to, no one to hear me out, and no one to help.

I went back behind a bush
and tried to appear. It worked, but I had never felt pain like this
before. I was still the same person that was in the future, the one
who could control her powers, only I couldn’t anymore.

I walked into the bedroom
and fell face-first onto the bed.

“
Are you alright?” Rose
asked.

“
Yeah I’m fine,” I mumbled
into the pillow.

“
Did you finish your
project?” she asked.

“
Oh
yeah,”
thanks for reminding
me.
I wasn’t too excited about getting up
in front of the whole class room, what was even worse? I had to
fret about it until sixth hour.

I fell asleep as I laid
there face down. Before I knew it, I was walking through the halls
of a hospital. There was a calendar on the wall. It was November,
3rd, 2011. Why was I in a hospital? No one seemed to notice me, so
I walked around. If this was some kind of clue, I needed to figure
out what it meant.

Unlike all of my other
dreams, I could do whatever I wanted. I wanted to go left, so I
went left. I walked into a bathroom; I was invisible, but I could
see a slight outline of myself in the mirror and nothing more. I
walked out of the bathroom. Even though I had control over where I
went, something told me to keep going straight. Then, I passed the
second room on the left, and something pulled me inside.

There was Rose, lying in the
hospital bed, unconscious. Her fair skin was now covered in bruises
and cuts. It was true; Rose didn’t make it to the past, and the
Rose in the past was a different person. Though I doubted this
would give me any answers, I sat down. I hadn’t known Rose long,
but she was my sister, my twin sister. I heard a nurse walking down
the hall talking to someone.

“
Yes, she’s in a coma. We’re
hoping for her to make a full recovery, but with these types of
things, you can’t be too sure,” the nurse explained.

Violet must be here to see
Rose,
I thought. It would be good to see
her again, too, after everything, but no, the person who walked
through the door was not Violet—it was Ann. The nurse kept walking
as Ann walked into the room. She sat in the chair on the opposite
side of the bed. What was she doing here? I hoped nothing bad would
happen; there would be nothing I could do to help.

“
With
Scarlett gone, you’re my only hope,” she whispered as she pulled
something out of her pocket.
A
necklace.

She looked back at the door,
making sure the coast was clear. Then, she lifted up Rose’s head
and put the necklace on her. It glowed for about a minute and when
it stopped she took it off her. She put it back in her pocket, and
then she sat there staring at Rose. She grabbed onto the pillow
behind her head and slowly pulled it out from under her. She lifted
up the pillow right above Rose’s face, before she could hold it
down, the nurse walked in. Ann hurried up and stuck the pillow back
behind her head and leaned back in her chair.