“Hadn’t planned on it,” Gilbert says under his breath.
Hank ignores him and begins to lead his people down the hallway.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I say.
“What do you mean?” Ethan asks.
Their backs are to us as they continue into the darkness and I know that this might be an opportunity to test my new ability. Perhaps if I see something bad happen in the future, this time I will be able to prevent it.
“Hank wait!” I say. He stops and all eyes fall on me. I run ahead and reach out for his hand before he can object.
The familiar white light flashes in my eyes and I see Hank leading the charge into the gymnasium. The fight only lasts a few minutes, but Hank somehow gets cornered. He smashes the head of a greyskin but doesn’t realize that there is another greyskin lurking behind him. It reaches out and grabs his arm and, before he can move, it sinks its rotten teeth into his wrist.
I let go of his hand. An icy chill settles inside me as I stare at Hank’s face. He looks at me with a smile as usual, but he also seems confused.
“You can’t go,” I blurt out.
“I’m sorry, Waverly, but it is my duty,” he answers.
“But you can’t!”
“Waverly,” Ethan says, standing next to me. “What’s going on?”
“Why are you so worried?” Hank asks.
I want to tell him that I’ve seen the future. I want to say that I have this ability, but I know Hank won’t believe me, Ethan will think I’m crazy, and Gilbert will never let me live it down.
“I just…” I can’t get the words out. “What if you get bitten on the wrist or something?”
“It is certainly a possibility,” Hanks says. He smiles and pats me on the shoulder and then starts walking away from me.
“It’s not only a possibility,” I say. I can feel my voice shaking. “If you go down there, that will happen.”
He stops and turns to look at me, his eyebrows lowered, but he only shakes his head and continues to walk away.
“Give us weapons,” I say in desperation. “We want to help you.”
“No we don’t,” Gilbert says.
My head snaps at him. “You don’t have to.” I look at Ethan. “You don’t either.”
“I’m ready to help,” Ethan says.
Hank nods and we are each handed a sharpened broom handle. “Just try to keep your kills as quiet as possible,” he says.
Ethan and I follow the group, leaving Gilbert fuming behind us. The broom handles aren’t much, but I’ve killed greyskins with less. It will at least keep a few feet between me and the dead.
“What was that all about?” Ethan whispers to me as we trail the others. “Telling him he will get bitten?”
“It’s just a feeling is all,” I say, but this time I think having a feeling will pay off. This time, I’m going to stay close to Hank so nothing bad happens to him. It’s up to me to keep him from dying. “Just keep your eyes on Hank.”
Ethan shakes his head. I know he thinks I’m crazy, but what else can I do? Hank won’t heed my warning so I have to do what I can to stop the future I saw. I know if I would have done something to stop it for Lucas, he would be walking next to us.
The man that had given Hank the report about the greyskins meets us at the first doors of the gymnasium.
“How did they get in there?” Hank asks.
The man shrugs as sweat drips down the side of his face. His arms seem to be shaking from nervousness. “I have no idea. They must have gotten one of the doors open.”
“How did we not see this coming?” Hank speaks with a harshness that I have yet to see until now.
The man shrugs again and Hank walks past him and cracks open the door. He lets out a sigh. “It’s manageable,” he whispers, “but we’ve got to get in there and stop it now before their numbers grow.”
He instructs part of the group to go around to the other side of the gym and the rest of us to follow him. We slip into the gymnasium without notice and I can see that we are at the top of the bleachers in front of stairs descending all the way down to the basketball court. I nearly gasp at the sight of the greyskins congregated at the bottom, some of them climbing the stairs.
“Spread out,” Hank says to us.
The others move around the bleachers with steady holds on their weapons. Ethan stays close to me and I stay within feet of Hank, watching for any greyskins that might approach. Thinking back, I remember that Hank had been standing on the court in my vision. If I can just keep him from going onto the court, then perhaps he can avoid the bite altogether.
But what consequences would there be for altering the future I saw? What if, for some reason, removing Hank from the situation would cause me to get bitten instead? Or Ethan? I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if my actions caused his death. I look at him as he creeps down the stairs a few feet behind me. I should have reached out and touched him to see what his future holds.
I look at Hank. For all I know, the greyskins could have us all in a minute, but that’s not what I saw. It was Hank I saw.
“Hank,” I whisper.
He turns to me slowly.
“Don’t go onto the court,” I say.
“That’s where the greyskins are, sweetheart,” he says with a smile. “It’s my job to clear them out.”
“Just listen to me!”
But Hank just continues to smile and he turns away, descending the stairs toward his doom.
I don’t know who makes the first kill, but it isn’t silent and it sets all of the greyskins on us. Three come toward Hank on the stairs but Ethan and I jump next to him and we take out one each. My broom handle proves to be sharp enough as it stabs through the top of the greyskin’s head.
Hank clambers ahead as if he is fueled to move forward because I told him not to, and now he is on the court. It is more difficult than I thought to defend myself from the onslaught of the greyskins and try to keep an eye on Hank at the same time. They come in from all directions. Having only a sharp spear’s end means I’ve got to have good aim and I have to be quick. The handle is next to useless against greyskins using a sweeping motion. It’s stab or nothing.
A thought suddenly hits me that I wasn’t in my vision like I had been in my others. Before, I was able to see myself next to Lucas or Ethan before the event took place, but this time I didn’t. Did that mean that I was going to die too? Was I already dead by the time Hank got bitten? I did have the vision before I had planned to go with them. Perhaps changing my mind and telling Hank that I had seen his future had somehow altered it. Perhaps my actions made him more cautious, therefore the greyskin that would have killed him would already be dead.
Black blood drips off the sharp end of the broom handle and streams snake toward my fingers as I stab over and over. There are more bodies lying on the ground now than there are standing, but it isn’t over. I look at Hank and he seems to be fine. He shouts for some of the others to get to the unlocked door and secure it. Then I hear Ethan yell for help. When I look to my right, there are at least five greyskins almost on top of him and he is pushed into a corner. I look back at Hank and see that there is nothing around him, so I run to help Ethan.
I stab two of them through the back of the head before the others turn on me. Ethan wrestles with one, but is able to shake it off and stab it through the skull. All five are dead in just a few seconds.
“Thanks,” Ethan says breathless. “You just saved my life.”