“And in all cases, the visions appeared more frequently as the event became imminent,” Sawyer says. He taps his chin. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the way it works, it really seems like the vision gods want you to succeed.”
I give a sarcastic laugh. “They’re on our side, all right.”
“You know what I mean.”
I nod. “Yeah, I do. The vision really does give you the clues you need and the urgency to find all the answers. You just have to work at it to see them all.”
As the bell rings, Trey concludes, “So maybe we should wait a few days to visit Tori, in hopes that she gets more information or some new scenes in the vision.”
Sawyer and I look at each other and nod. “Let’s shoot for the weekend, then,” I say. “I’ll let everybody know if anything changes. But I’m sure we’re safe to wait until then.”
Twenty-Seven
Tori gets discharged from the hospital on Tuesday to finish her lengthy recovery at home. All week I stay in touch with her, coaching her and keeping her calm despite the fact that the vision is growing more intense every day. “Even though it seems like everything is out of control, it’s okay,” I tell her. “You’ll see more soon, and as long as you are telling me everything, we’ll know when we can start to act. But right now, we just don’t have enough information.” I pause. “You got more information over time with your last vision, right?”
“I guess,” she says. “Yeah. But this is horrible, going through it all over again. And this one is so . . . gruesome. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
I rise above the urge to say she should have listened to me last time, and instead I tell her, “Just try to stay sane. And let me know if anything changes. You can call me anytime, day or night. I mean it.”
“Thanks,” Tori says.
“Is your mom still being cool?”
“Yeah. No worries. She gets it now.”
• • •
Friday morning Tori texts me: It’s getting worse, and I think there’s something new.
I write back: We’d all like to come to your house tomorrow. Is that okay?
She gives me her mom’s address, and thankfully it’s much closer to our house than UC is. We were going broke paying for gas.
• • •
On Saturday, Trey, Ben, Rowan, Sawyer, and I sprawl out in the Hayeses’ living room, surrounding the recliner where Tori rests wearing loose-fitting sweats.
“You look fancy,” I say. “No hospital gown.”
“Finally,” Tori says. She smiles for, like, the first time ever. “I’m so glad to be out of the hospital.”
“I’ll bet.” I tell her about my recent time in the hospital after the crash.
“So, wait—you got hurt doing your vision thing?” Her face is troubled.
“Totally,” I say. “And obviously you know Trey got shot in the arm during the one at UC, and he was helping. He knew about the vision. He was lucky, though. He’s doing physical therapy stuff now.”
“Wow, that’s terrible,” Tori says. “I didn’t realize that you guys could get hurt while doing this. That’s not fair.”
I glance at Sawyer, who is looking at me. “Invincible,” he says decisively, and I give a reluctant half grin. I turn back to Tori. “We try not to think about that.”
I officially introduce Trey and Rowan to Tori, and then I make sure Tori knows Ben since I don’t know if she was at the meeting from the Gay-Straight Alliance side or the choir group side of things. Ben assures me they are well acquainted.
“Great,” I say. “Let’s get moving, then.”
I pull out my smartphone while Ben and Sawyer set up their laptops. Tori gives us the Wi-Fi password, and within a minute we’re online.
“It’s like Command Central in here,” Rowan says, looking around the room.
Sawyer props his computer on a small table next to Tori’s chair and directs his browser to a video page. I pull out some tracing paper and a pencil that I bought from a craft store a few days ago for this purpose and set it on the floor next to Sawyer for later. We’re starting to get good at this.
“Everybody ready?” Sawyer asks, looking around. We’re all poised to take notes and research anything that is researchable. Sawyer starts the video. “Do you see your vision?” he asks Tori.
“Oh, yeah,” Tori says. “Question is, when do I not see it these days?”
“Okay, good,” he says. “So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to start this video from the beginning and pause immediately, which should pause your vision. Then I’m going to need you to talk us through what you’re seeing little by little, scene by scene, and tell us everything. Don’t leave any detail out, even if it seems unimportant. Got it?”
“Got it,” Tori says.
“And then after we talk through each frozen screenshot, I’ll have you do a little tracing of the scenes, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, totally,” Tori says. She seems very eager to redeem herself, and I’m glad. I’m actually starting to like her. She walks us through the vision.
“The first thing I see is the ship. It’s all white where I’m standing, but later from a different angle I can see it’s blue on the bottom.”
“What’s your point of view in this scene?” I ask. “Are you, you know, standing on the ship, or looking at it from a different spot?”