“How do you know my name?” I ask.
“Heh. I was wondering when you were going to ask. I got a call from my good friend Mr. Paxton. Told me you were on the way. He also told me something very interesting about you.” He sucks in more smoke and blows it toward me. “He told me that you can see the future. Just by a simple touch.”
My insides turn to ice and I look away, cursing Gilbert in my mind.
He laughs a greedy, sinful laugh that gives me cold chills. “So, it’s true then. You can see the future. I’ve heard of things like this. My boss…Paxton’s boss…told us to keep a watch out for people like you. Calls you the Starborn or some craziness like that.”
My face contorts into a confused stare, but I don’t look up at him. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction that I acknowledge him any longer.
“I’ll figure out a way to get that cylinder from your friends soon enough,” he says. “Right now, I want to test something out with you.” He opens the door and shouts. “Joe, get in here!” He lets it close as he walks closer to me, laughing. He sucks on the cigarette one last time before tossing it to the floor. In a second, Joe opens the door.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Get on your knees, and give your hand to Waverly here,” he says. “I’m trying to test something out.”
I think I’m getting sick. I don’t need the ability of foresight to know what Scarecrow is about to do. Joe looks at him with a confused look, but does as he says. He reaches his hand out to me but I keep my hands to myself, looking up at Scarecrow.
“Touch his hand,” Scarecrow says.
“No.”
He takes a deep breath and rolls his eyes. “Touch his hand, or I’ll make you.” He slowly reaches behind his belt and pulls out a handgun. “I don’t have to threaten your life to make you. A kneecap. A shoulder. It doesn’t matter. Touch his hand.”
Joe seems to look as nervous as I feel, but he holds his hand out steadily. I swallow hard and press my hand against his palm. A white light flashes before my eyes.
I see myself, the Waverly of the future, crying, holding her sides she’s sobbing so hard. There is Scarecrow, and then there is Joe.
“What did you see?” Scarecrow shouts.
“You’re going to shoot him,” she whispers.
Boom!
Joe falls to the floor, blood oozing from his head wound.
The white light flashes again and I feel the tears form in my eyes.
“What did you see?” Scarecrow whispers.
I can’t stop the tears. I don’t know Joe from anyone, but I don’t want to see him murdered right in front of me. The tears flow quickly and I start to heave. The heaves turn into sobs and I start to hold my sides. I know this is what I just saw, and I want to change something but I can’t.
“What did you see?” Scarecrow shouts.
“You’re going to shoot him,” I say softly.
Boom!
I close my eyes tightly, having already seen what Joe looks like with a bullet hole in his head.
“So it works,” Scarecrow says. “Do it to me. I want you to tell me my future.”
“No,” I say.
“You will do it,” he says. “Don’t make me repeat myself.” He holds out his hand to me, waiting for me to grab it.
“What if it’s bad?” I say. “You will be angry with me if I give you bad news.”
“You are giving me the power to know what I need to change,” he says. “If I can know the future, I am the master of it.”
If only that were true, I think to myself.
I bite the bullet and reach out to touch Scarecrow’s hand. He pulls back briefly. “The truth, now. You hear me?”
“I understand.”
I think it’s the vilest thing to touch Scarecrow’s hand. I want to bite off his finger or grab his gun away and start shooting, but I know such an act would just get me killed.
My hand touches his and the light returns.
I see my future self standing on a metal walkway on the second floor of the warehouse, a railing on both sides of her to keep her from falling into the crowd of hungry greyskins below. She’s holding a crowbar, walking toward Scarecrow at the end of the walkway.
He smiles at her bitterly. He holds up his gun, points it at her and pulls the trigger. The click tells her that it’s empty. Scarecrow holds the gun in the air and shrugs. “I guess you have me cornered.”
He runs at Waverly and tackles her to the floor. The greyskins seem to be screaming for their blood. She tries to shove him off with the crowbar but he hits her, grabs at her. Somehow, he snaps her chain off her neck and he jumps back laughing.
“Did your pitiful boyfriend give you this?” Scarecrow shouts, the ring dangling in front of his face.
“Give it back,” Waverly says.
He now holds the chain over the side of the walkway, threatening to let the ring fall into the mass of greyskins. She stands for a moment, breathing heavily.
“Give me the crowbar,” he says.
She drops it to the floor and charges after him. In a fury, she reaches for the chained ring. She claws at his face, neck, and eyes until they both fall to the floor. She rips the chain from his hands and clutches it tightly. Scarecrow gives her a swift kick in the gut and she goes tumbling over the side. In the last second, she’s able to grab onto the side of the walkway. One hand holds her above the greyskins below and the other clasps the ring in her palm. When he grabbed the ring, Scarecrow was trying to take Lucas away from her again, but she didn’t let him.
Scarecrow pushes himself up from the walkway and starts hitting her fingers.
“No!” she shouts out.
“Waverly!” the voice is Ethan’s. He runs toward Scarecrow from the other side of the walkway and tackles him. He lifts a knife into the air and stabs Scarecrow through the neck and chest, over and over.
And just as Ethan is about to pull her up, she feels something grab onto her ankle. She looks down and sees a greyskin pull on her and sink its teeth into her leg, ripping away muscle and flesh. She screams out in horror.
I can’t become one of them.
The light flashes and I feel too stunned to say anything as Scarecrow stares at me. I can’t help but feel for the chain around my neck. Am I really going to be so stupid? Am I going to let him affect me like that? I think back to the vision of Gilbert’s future and remember that I was in it. He talked to me. I was alive! Unless…unless the vision of Gilbert was to happen before what I just saw with Scarecrow. Or, perhaps in Gilbert’s vision, I’m dying and that’s why I’m standing so close to Ethan. He’s supporting me.
Either way, I have so far been unable to change the future and that thought sobers me. Perhaps I am about to join with Lucas in the afterlife. If today is the end, then so be it. At least Scarecrow is going down with me.
“What did you see?” he asks.
“I can’t control what I see,” I say.
“I don’t care. What did you see?”
“I saw you as an old man,” I lie. “You were on your deathbed. People surrounded you.” I looked at the cigarette butt on the floor. “You were coughing. Wheezing. Cancer, I think.”
“Heh,” Scarecrow seems amused by this. “Better cancer than one of those greyskins, I guess. How do I know you aren’t lying?”
“You don’t.”
He chews the inside of his lip as if he’s thinking about something. I can’t tell if he wants to try to kill me or keep me around, but a frantic knock at the door interrupts his thoughts.