Do not let Amanda get out of the van. Listen to me, you stupid girl. Do not let Amanda get out of the van. If she gets out of the van, they will shoot her. They will shoot her and she will die.
Mia’s hands trembled as she transcribed the notes into her book. Her sunniest thought was that all these warnings were from a future that, for one reason or another, had become moot. Or perhaps these events wouldn’t occur for years to come.
At midnight, a final message dropped to her bedspread. The ivory scrap had been ripped straight from her journal, the words written hastily in bloodred ink.
They hit you all at sunrise. Sleep with your shoes on. Get ready to run.
TWELVE
Erin Salgado was the first to meet the newest guests.
As the pink light of dawn washed over the premises, she carried her gun down the winding driveway. She had no idea what to expect from her last-minute patrol. All she knew was that Mia had scared her something fierce.
Shortly after midnight, Erin had spotted the girl on camera, fretfully pacing the third-floor hallway. Mia paused at David’s door in dilemma, then Amanda’s, then Zack’s, and then repeated the cycle all over again.
Soon Erin went upstairs to find her. “Honey, are you okay?”
Mia hugged her journal, her face a quivering mask. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to start a whole panic over nothing. I mean I once got a note saying ‘Don’t trust Peter,’ and then another note saying to disregard the first note. So I’ve gotten bad messages before.”
Erin stroked Mia’s shoulders, hopelessly lost. The physicists didn’t go out of their way to explain things to the Salgados. Most of what the family knew was gleaned through surveillance and eavesdropping. Erin had overheard some very odd chatter about Mia.
“Is there any way I can help?”
Mia’s eyes lit up. “Can I come with you to the security room? Is that where you see everything?”
Erin knew her clients would frown upon her bringing one of the subjects into the monitoring station, but Mia had a way of tugging her heartstrings. They were both husky gals, both from a large family of men. Erin could only imagine how she’d be if she lost her dad and brothers.
She took Mia downstairs to the cramped little office that, to everyone on night watch, had become synonymous with boredom. As Mia perched at the console and watched the nine color screens, Erin sat behind her and twisted her long hair into braids.
“What exactly are you looking for, kitten?”
“I have no idea. It’s probably too early to see them anyway.”
Erin eyed her nervously. “People here are saying you can tell the future. Is that true?”
“I don’t tell the future,” Mia replied, through a gaping yawn. “The future tells me.”
At 3 A.M., she finally succumbed to fatigue. Erin led her to the worn green couch at the back of the room and draped a blanket over her.
“Wake me up before sunrise,” Mia mumbled. “They’re supposed to hit at sunrise.”
Unnerved, Erin popped a can of orange vim, then resumed the monitoring. At 6 A.M., her twin brother Eric arrived to relieve her. He eyed Mia quizzically.
“Let her sleep,” Erin whispered. “She had a bad night.”
“What, like nightmares?”
“I think so.” I hope so, she thought. Otherwise, trouble was coming right about now.
Instead of driving straight home, as her weary thoughts demanded, Erin drew her pistol and took a cautious sweep around the perimeter of the building. She walked down to the front gates, testing them. The property was sealed within a ten-foot iron fence. Good enough to keep most stragglers out.
By the time Erin returned to the family van, the sun had climbed above the trees. She stashed her gun and texted her brother.
Okay. This is silly. I’m going home. Keep an eye on M
A reflective gleam caught her eye. She turned to spy a wiry man standing on the front lawn, forty feet away. He cut an ominous figure in his dark jeans and black leather jacket. Erin couldn’t see his face through the shaded visor of his motorcycle helmet, but he was clearly looking at her.
The gleam had come from the three-foot Japanese sword in his right hand.
Wide-eyed, Erin reached for her gun. Her fingers barely touched the holster before the man sped past her in a dark blur. She felt a hot blast of air, then an odd tug in her midsection. Erin Salgado considered the very strange thing she just witnessed, then fell to the ground in two pieces.
—
Eric was pouring sugar into his coffee when his sister’s death occurred on the upper-right screen. It wasn’t until the image looped back to the driveway, fifty-five seconds later, that he glimpsed the long blood spatter on the side of the van. His coffee mug shattered on the floor.
“Erin!”