Better than nothing, Teddy supposed. But she couldn’t help but feel like a sitting duck herself. The best she could do was continue to scan the audience for Yates or anyone who looked out of place.
To her relief, the ceremony went on without incident. Whitfield Institute’s newest graduating class left the stage, diplomas in hand. Teddy stood on the western edge of the tent and watched as recruits, alumnae, government liaisons, and faculty milled about by the refreshment table. Caterers moved among the crowd, distributing bottled water and flutes of champagne.
Finally, she spotted Clint and moved toward him. They had spent the year parrying information, both of them giving just enough so that one always felt like the other had the upper hand. But lives could be at stake now. She filled him in on Dara’s death warning, enjoying the subtle satisfaction of being open and honest. No more games to play. Nothing else to hide. Unfortunately, there was no action for Clint to take, either. The grounds were as secure as he could make them. But at least they were on the same page for once.
Short of remaining alert, Teddy had done all she could reasonably be expected to do, and she discovered she was starving. Dara’s death warning had killed her appetite that morning, and she’d skipped lunch looking for Clint. Now she was more than ready to join her friends at the buffet.
“I know this sounds crazy, but I think I saw Brett Evans by the bar a few minutes ago. But when I looked back, he was gone. I mean, I thought it was him. But I’m not sure,” Jillian said, her eyes widened. “Unless—you don’t think I can see ghosts now, do you?”
“I saw him, too,” Pyro said, popping a mini-quiche into his mouth. “So, definitely not dead.”
“He’s here?” Dara said. “Weird. Why’d he come back?”
Pyro shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe he regrets dropping out the way he did. Or maybe he has a friend who’s graduating.”
“Should we tell Clint?” Dara asked.
Teddy nodded. “I’ll go. I just talked to him,” she said. She wove through the crowd, heading toward the stage. She spotted Clint’s broad form not too far away, his back to her, deep in conversation with a woman Teddy didn’t recognize.
She’d darted around a group of graduates who’d clearly enjoyed a bit more than their share of the champagne when she felt a hand clamp down on her forearm. Teddy jerked back, but she’d been caught off-balance. Whoever had grabbed her pulled her behind a flap in the tent wall.
“Surprised to see me, darlin’?”
Brett Evans. But he looked different. The laid-back Texas cowboy she’d met her first night at Whitfield was leaner, harder. His hair was cut in a military style. His easygoing smile veered more toward a leer than a grin. And then the smile faded altogether. He tightened his grip on her arm.
“Brett, you’re hurting me.”
“Take me to Yates and no one will get hurt.”
Yates? Brett wanted Yates?
Teddy shook her head, her thoughts spinning wildly. “He’s not here. I haven’t seen him.”
“Then where is he?”
“Where . . . I don’t know. How would I know?”
“Don’t lie to me, Teddy.” He gave her forearm another vicious squeeze.
“Brett, what’s this about? What are you doing?”
“We’re supposed to track him through you. Those were our orders.” Brett used his free hand to pull a gun from his back pocket. “I’ll use force if I have to, Teddy. I don’t want to, but I will. When it comes to Yates, the end justifies the means.”
Jeremy had said the same thing all those months ago. Memories suddenly flooded her: discordant moments that hadn’t seemed important at the time slammed together with a new and disturbing force. Jeremy talking to Brett before Halloween. Jeremy giving Brett a recruiting pitch for his organization just before he’d secured the blood samples. Because Brett, like Teddy and Christine, was a child of Sector Three psychics.
So Brett and Jeremy were stepping in, ready to take Yates’s place in his former organization. What had Clint called them? Vigilantes? Psychic soldiers?
Teddy shook the thought away. The terminology didn’t matter. She had to get help. One of the Misfits would certainly realize she was missing. “Let me go, Brett. Someone will notice I’m gone. And when they see you, they’ll—”
“They’ll what? Welcome a prodigal student with open arms? Of course they will. And frankly, it’ll be hours before anyone notices you’re gone. That’s why I’m here and why Jeremy’s making himself useful somewhere else on campus.”
Jeremy was on Angel Island. “Where—”
“Teddy?” Clint asked. “Is that you?”
Relief surged through her. She’d never been so glad to hear Clint’s voice.
Clint stood just inches away, on the other side of the tent wall. Before she could cry out for help, Brett jerked her roughly against him. Quietly, he intoned, “Say one word and you’ll go first.” He lifted his gun, pressed the barrel against her cheek.
Dara’s warning snapped into place. The tent. The ceremony. The crowd. The figure wasn’t Yates. It was Brett.
Brett tightened his grip on his gun. Flicked off the safety. Then, to Teddy’s horror, he turned the gun and aimed it directly at the tent wall, exactly where Clint stood, completely unaware of the danger he faced.
Teddy sucked in a breath, striving to calm her wildly beating heart. She’d trained for situations like this. She knew what to do. What she had to do. She concentrated on the film deck in her mind, the feeling of the metal reels in her hand.
Brett pulled the trigger. A puff of smoke accompanied the bullet as it left the barrel of the gun.
There was no clear vision because the future wasn’t fixed. Because Teddy was there, too, and she had a chance to change the outcome.
Slowly, slowly. Slow everything down. I am a being of a simultaneous universe.
She watched a breeze cradle a leaf, slowing its descent to the point where it appeared frozen in midair. An ant, crawling over a discarded crust of bread, slowed to the point where any
