“I had to be involved. Because I vowed to never let something like Sector Three happen again.”
Silence filled the room. Teddy and her friends attempted to process what they’d just heard.
“But what about the blood tests?” Jillian asked. “We’re still research subjects. How is that any different?”
“Yes. We’re research subjects. But Whitfield conducts genetic studies, not clinical trials. No student will be subjected to experimental drugs or treatments. At Sector Three, psychics were tortured. Recruits are safe here. I’ve seen to that.”
“Tell that to Brett Evans and Christine Federico,” Pyro scoffed.
“We have no reason to believe that their absence is the result of foul play.”
“But doesn’t it seem a little coincidental?” Pyro countered. “If I were the detective on this case, I’d be looking into whether a vigilante group who used powerful psychics to achieve their ends might be interested in kidnapping such individuals.”
“We don’t think they were kidnapped,” Clint said. “We think they may have been recruited by—”
“When can we see Molly?” Jeremy interrupted. Teddy noticed that Jeremy was getting fidgety, as if he’d had enough of the conversation.
“I’ll keep you apprised of her recovery,” Clint returned. Apparently, he’d had enough as well. He stood. “Whitfield Institute doesn’t keep recruits against their will. If any one of you no longer feels safe here, or no longer believes in the work we’re doing, you’re free to leave. I hope none of you makes that choice.” When none of them made a move to leave the office, Clint dismissed them, saying, “You’re free to return to your dorms. But no leaving the island without express written permission from me.”
On the way out of the room, Teddy tried to catch Jeremy in the hall, but he begged off, saying that he had heard a storm was blowing in and he had to secure his boat.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
WHEN NO ONE SAW JEREMY on Sunday, Teddy assumed he’d left campus to visit Molly in the hospital, even though Clint had expressly forbidden it. But when Jeremy didn’t show up for classes Monday morning, it was clear something was up. A quick visit to his dorm room confirmed it. His clothes were gone. So were the few personal belongings he’d brought with him. No explanation. No goodbye. The rest of the Misfits were left to wonder whether he had lost his faith in Whitfield Institute or was just too shaken by Molly’s injury to stick around.
In the weeks that followed, the team splintered. Rather than bringing them together, the botched mission and the devastation that had followed sent them on different paths. No harsh words were spoken or blame assigned, but a fissure divided them just the same. Pyro set off dozens of fire alarms with as many different girls. Jillian wandered the island’s footpaths, engaging in long conversations with squawking, chirping birds. Dara stayed in her room, writing letters to her grandmother about the characteristic peculiarities of death predictions. And Teddy, reeling from the loss of her friends and the camaraderie they’d enjoyed, again turned to schoolwork, trying to compartmentalize her worry about Molly’s condition and to swallow the guilt she now felt. No change had been reported: Molly remained under the care of physicians at the hospital in San Francisco. Teddy felt she should be with Molly, supporting her friend’s recovery, rather than staying on campus preparing for exams that would take place in the second week of June. She knew there was nothing she could do to help. But the nagging sense of inadequacy just wouldn’t quit.
After she’d forwarded the file to Yates’s lawyer, Teddy had hoped for news. An email, a phone call, a letter—any word from Yates that he would honor his promise to help her find her mother. But the days passed and she heard nothing.
So Teddy worked harder. She hadn’t been strong enough during the mission; her influence hadn’t held; she hadn’t been able to control her telekinesis. With considerable effort, she’d mastered just one feat: directing the path of Ping-Pong balls and paper clips.
All those months ago, Clint had said that if she worked hard enough, she might bend a bullet. If she remembered correctly, the process would involve manipulating time. Or something.
Recalling that conversation, she was filled with self-recrimination. If she had mastered that sooner, as Clint once hoped, could she have changed the trajectory of Molly’s fall?
The question kept her up at night.
* * *
She couldn’t ask Clint for help; she was determined to find a solution on her own. Instead of giving up in frustration, as she once might have done, she spent her days in the library, scouring the shelves for anything that might guide her, though she knew she should be studying for her exams.
One day she discovered a slim pamphlet written in the 1920s by a man named Swami Panchadasi. He explained that bending a bullet wasn’t just about moving an object but about slowing time. Or, rather, about transcending time. He encouraged the reader to accept the idea that the past, present, and future occurred simultaneously, not discretely. It was a concept that Teddy had only just grasped in astral telepathy—she could sift through someone’s mind to access a lifetime’s worth of memories. But its implications for astral telekinesis eluded her.
In Seership, Dunn looked both east and west to understand psychic phenomena. Teddy put down the Panchadasi pamphlet and picked up a textbook on astral quantum mechanics. In a short passage titled “The Theory of Astral Telekinesis,” it described two principles that clarified Panchadasi’s assertion. It explained the movement of subatomic particles as they “jumped” around in time. Teddy—any human, really—was composed of millions and millions subatomic particles, so she could also jump around in time. The textbook continued by describing the universe as probabilistic, not deterministic. Past events, those that had been observed, were fixed, but future events, which had not been observed, existed in “a state of probability,” where many outcomes were still possible . . . until one became most probable as time passed. The wiser the clairvoyants, the
