Sitting in the chair as it gets dark, I think about checking myself into the hospital. I don’t even know if I can drive when all the windows are playing the scenes. I can’t concentrate on anything, it’s getting so bad. I can’t imagine it being any worse. And finally, I wonder if maybe it’s trying to tell me something else.
Maybe it’s trying to scream at me that I’ve got the facts right . . . and the date wrong.
And that I’m an idiot.
And that this. Crash. Event. Crash. Is imminent. EXPLOSION.
I lean forward in the chair with a gasp, pressing my fingers into my temples and squeezing my eyes shut. All this crap circulating in my brain is making everything harder to comprehend, and it’s a stupid shame that I haven’t figured it out before now. But with this snow, it’s got to be. “Maybe,” I muse. “Maybe they put the decorations up this morning. And maybe Sawyer is working tonight. No doubt he is, he’s got tomorrow off . . . and the snow . . .” I slam my body back into the living room chair with a groan, knocking a box of recipes off the table next to me, and then scramble to my feet to check the time. “Holy shit.”
Because with these facts—the snow forecast, Sawyer not working—this crash cannot happen tomorrow night. It’s happening tonight.
It’s 5:42 when I realize that I do not have twenty-five hours and twenty-two minutes to save the world. I have one hour and twenty-two minutes.
ONE HOUR. TWENTY-TWO MINUTES.
My hands start to shake and my throat goes dry. The scenes from the vision are no longer attached to windows and walls and screens and books, but they swirl around me, giving me vertigo. I grab the wall to steady myself, and then I go to the phone, because the only thing that screams in my ears right now is the conversation I had with Sawyer’s mother yesterday when I was trying to get a reservation. How about Friday or Sunday? Friday or Sunday? Friday or Sunday?
I have the wherewithal to dial star 67, and then yank the restaurant’s phone number from somewhere in my memory, because I certainly can’t look it up right now. When a young woman answers, I say in the same voice as the one I used yesterday, “Hello, there. Any chance I can make a reservation for tonight? Party of eight, seven p.m.?”
“Sure, one moment. I think we had a cancellation.”
I keep my eyes closed to stop the spinning, and count every second that goes by.
She comes back. “All right, no problem. Last name?”
My eyes spring open and I have to hold myself back from blurting out my real name. “Uh . . . Kravitz.”
“Kravitz? Seven o’clock. You’re all set.”
I almost shout, “Can we have the window tables?”
She hesitates. “Um, sure,” she says, and I think I may have scared her.
I force myself to speak calmly. “Thank you. Thank you so very much. You’ll have the tables ready right on time, right? We won’t be able to wait.” My head is aching.
“Of course, Ms. Kravitz. We’ll take good care of you.”
“Thank you.”
We hang up, and I feel like the band around my chest has loosened slightly. When I open my eyes, things have slowed down. In fact, something’s quite different. I lunge for the TV remote and turn it on, hitting slow motion immediately. And there it is. The difference. I pause it, hands shaking.
On the window scene, the tables are empty, and on the last scene, something else is different. Now in the body bag scene there are only four bags.
Only four! One phone call saved five people’s lives. “Holy mother of crap,” I whisper as I stare at the new frame.
But Sawyer’s dead face remains.
Thirty-Two
Despite staring at Sawyer’s dead face, I feel a surge of hope. The swirling scenes around me have calmed down, as if I’m being rewarded for figuring something out, for getting something right. I glance at my watch and try not to freak out. My next move is figuring out how to get my grounded ass out of here without being noticed. But first . . .
“I need you,” I text to Trey, and then I turn on the computer. Everything I see is the new crash vision.
In less than two minutes, I hear the pounding—Trey taking the steps two at a time. He bursts into the apartment. “You okay?”
“So far. Can you do something for me?”
“What is it?”
“Search ‘exterior gas valve shutoff.’ Hurry.”
He only hesitates a split second, and then he does it, but the computer takes agonizingly long to load anything. “Why am I doing this?”
“Because I can’t see the web pages. I only see the crash.”
“Oh, God, that’s so weird.”
“Please hurry.”
“I’m trying,” he mutters, shaking the mouse side to side. “You’d think Dad could start collecting newer models of computers, but no, that’s too logical.” The minutes tick away, and he types and taps his fingers on the desk. “Here it comes, finally,” he says, and then reads everything he finds about shutoff valves.
I jiggle, nervous energy pulsing through me. He can’t read fast enough. “Okay, thank you. Trey?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
He looks at me. “Jesus, Jules. What are you doing?”
I bite my lip. “I have to go out for a bit. The crash—I think it’s happening tonight.” I want to say more, but I can’t. I need him to say something. Something big, so I know he’s on my side.