Then she raises the gun and

She shoots Sadie in the head

Or

She shoots Phillip Keane in the head

It changes-shifts back and forth between the two realities so quickly I can't figure out which happens, which will happen, which did happen. It is all a blur of heads and bullets and dying.

But the ending is always the same.

She puts the still-smoking gun under her own chin and pulls the trigger again. Darkness returning brings no relief. My head is buried in Cole's chest, and he strokes my hair, telling me it will be okay.

It won't.

"We're there," I sob. "We try to stop it and it doesn't change anything."

"We still have to try," he says.

And he's right. This is the tragedy of knowing my fate: I have seen how it ends, and I will walk right into it, and nothing will change.

Chapter Twenty-Five

FIA

Six Minutes Before

ONCE UPON A TIME, I WAS A LITTLE GIRL WITH A mom and a dad and a sister, and the only monsters in the world were imaginary.

Then I became one of the monsters.

Once upon a time I thought I had done enough to keep Annie safe. I thought that if she was gone, if we were separated, we would finally be free to make our own choices.

But I was wrong. She was still in danger. She was always in danger. We had it backward. I'm the problem. As long as I'm alive, Annie isn't safe. As long as I'm alive, no one who should be is.

One more. One more thing. I'll do one more terrible thing, one last terrible thing to keep her safe.

And I won't think beyond that.

ANNIE

Ten Minutes Before

I BLINK AWAY THE LIGHT, TREMBLING AND SHAKING.

"Again?" Cole asks, his voice soft. I've had the vision four more times on the way here. It doesn't change.

It never changes.

Cars honk behind us, the city louder than I could have imagined. We're outside the building where Keane's offices are on the top floor. I feel like we're on the edge of a cliff, and I know we'll fall, and I know exactly what the impact at the bottom will feel like.

I can't save Fia. I can't even protect Sadie.

"Are you ready for this?" Eden asks, her voice falsely bright with bravado. "Because I'm down for kicking some serious Keane butt."

"You're never there," I say. "In the room."

"Well, we're going to change that, aren't we. We're going to change all of it."

I wipe under my eyes and nod, but I don't feel it. Nothing is going to change. I push my sunglasses back over my face and hold out my hand. We've agreed it's best to avoid being recognized for as long as possible. I have to pretend to be sighted.

I'm expecting Eden's hand, but it's Cole's fingers that twine with mine. I let out a breath of exhausted laughter.

"What?" he asks.

It's his hand. There's no doubt. I don't know how there ever was any. "In case it changes, or we all die or something, I want you to know that I'm going to fall in love with you."

He's quiet, and I wonder how I can worry about something this silly right now, but I'm afraid he'll take his hand back. "Sorry. Was that weird?" I try to smile, but Cole's right. I can't smile when I don't mean it.

He squeezes my fingers and traces his thumb along mine. "Actually, it's a relief. Now I know you won't knee me for doing this."

He leans in and brushes his lips against mine. It's not as desperate as the kiss on the bed. It's a feather of a kiss, a promise of a kiss, and I hope with everything in me that it's a promise we'll be able to keep. I just don't see how there is a future in which that will be possible now.

"Well then," Eden says. "If no one's going to kiss me, let's get this show on the road."

We walk through a door into the odorless air of a lobby. Cole doesn't pause, walks confidently, and I do my best to match his pace.

"Excuse me, miss?"

I nearly freeze, but Cole pulls my hand, insistent and steady. I don't stop.

"Yes?" Eden asks, and her voice is farther behind us than it should be.

"I'm going to need to see your ID." The guy talking sounds apologetic.

"What for? I've never had to show it before."

"Sorry. I don't make the rules, I'm just the security guy."

"So, what, you're supposed to stop every black person that walks through here, because we couldn't possibly belong in a fancy building? Could you be any more racist?"

"No, that's not it at all! I only-"

"I want to speak to your supervisor."

Cole stops, and then there's a light ding. We step over the threshold of the elevator.

Eden isn't with us.

Just like I knew she wouldn't be.

The elevator slows and I take a deep breath-then there are lights, no, no, not again!

By the time Fia kills herself, I am leaning against Cole, barely standing.

"What are you doing here?" a voice hisses. I know this voice.

Cole speaks. "We're here with Mr. Marino. It's urgent."

"You can't lie to me! I know Annie."

Please, Mae, I think. Fia's going to die.

"Oh, no," she whispers. There's a buzz and a click. "Come on!"

Cole grabs my hand and runs forward. I'm dragged behind, trying my hardest to match his pace.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" I know this voice, too. Nathan. "You can't go back there!"

"Mae, what's going on?" another man asks.

"It's a setup! Rafael Marino is after Mr. Keane," Mae says.

"Is that true?"

"No!" Nathan shouts.

Cole lets go of my hand and I back up until I hit the wall.

"We have a situation!" the Keane security guy says, met by crackling static. There's the meaty sound of a fist connecting with a face, and he cries out.

Someone hits the wall next to me. I know by his cologne that it's not Cole. I jump on Nathan, throwing my arms around his neck and wrapping my legs around his torso.

"Go!" I scream.

I hear Cole run. I can feel a gun beneath my thigh, where it hits Nathan's hip. I let go of his neck and grab the gun as he slams me into the wall and I drop to the ground. The vibrations of his feet pounding the floor follow Cole. Someone fires a shot. The security guy shouts, Mae screams, and I hear bodies slam into a wall. Then the sound of a door opening.

I stand, the gun heavy and cold in my hand. I know what it looks like. I've seen it so many times now. I know I will get into the room without being stopped.

I know my part.

I walk toward the end.

Chapter Twenty-Six

FIA

Two Minutes Before

PIXIE LOOKS UP AS JAMES AND I WALK BY.

"Fia, wait. Can I talk to you? Please?"

I don't think anything at her. I don't think anything at all.

Left foot, right foot, James's hand on my shoulder, guiding me. Left foot, right foot, so much can be accomplished without active thought. We pass through the doorway. I see Sandy blond with a gun, standing sentry in the hall with one of our security guards.

Ours.

Keane's. Ours. Mine. Doesn't matter.

Outside the room James stops, squeezes my shoulder but I don't feel it, not like I ought to, I don't feel anything. I'm a not-person. Not not not not. Tap tap tap tap.

Tap.

His father joins us. James opens the door and walks in, his posture perfect and his steps confident and his smile his very best, most assured lie. Rafael and the girl are waiting.

I follow, sliding along the wall, because I am a not-person and not-people take up no space in rooms.

I look at Phillip Keane, but he doesn't look at me, because he already knows I'm a not-person, he's known all along. He made me this way. I look at the girl on the couch, but can't keep looking at her, because if I keep looking at her, the girl on the couch will be a real person, and even not-person me can't kill a real person.

There is a strange sound that wants to escape from my mouth. Can't let that sound out. Teeth against knuckles to keep the sound in.

Something slams into the wall, and then the door bursts open, and two more people (not-people? Who can say anymore) tumble into the room, fighting. Cole and Sandy blond. I have fought both of them before. Cole should go after his knee. It's probably not fully healed yet. But who should I want to win? I cannot sort through anything to tell what will happen, what should happen, if I should make something happen. I have fallen into a black hole of wrong and there is no feeling here.

And then Annie follows them, a gun in her shaking hand.

"No," I say, and it makes me a person again but

no

no

no

Annie is a person. She's the only person, the only real person in the whole world, and now everything is over forever, no matter what, because she's here now and Phillip Keane is staring at her and he knows, he knows what I did, I'm a person again, I'm a dead person and it doesn't matter

nothing matters

nothing matters anymore, there is no safe, there is no way to fix this, I do what James wants and Annie is dead, I do what Rafael wants and James hates me forever, either way, either way I lose. I'll pick an ending and then I'll be done.

I put my hand on Annie's shoulder and reach for the gun she's pointing at nothing, because the gun is an ending. It's a fast ending.

Annie's shoulders droop, but then steel runs through them and she elbows me in the stomach. I jerk backward, shocked and hurt and-she hurt me?

"No," she says, her voice soft but made of the same steel that took over her shoulders, and I don't know this Annie. This is not the Annie from my dreams, the young and innocent Annie among the flames of my destruction.

"You don't get that future, Fia," she says.

She moves the gun from pointing at nothing to pointing directly at Phillip Keane. He does not have time to look surprised before she pulls the trigger and with a deafening pop Annie creates an end.

James cries out. Phillip Keane is on the floor with a hole in his head.

I am still here. I didn't do any of this.

Annie did.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

ANNIE

After

MY HAND HURTS, BOTH FROM THE WEIGHT OF THE gun and the force of the recoil. "Nobody move," I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I thought it would. "I know where everyone in this room is."

I've certainly seen it enough times. But not this part. This part is new. I made this part.

"Cole, did I kill Mr. Keane?"

"Yes." His voice is even and I hope he doesn't hate me now. But I don't regret what I did. Maybe I will, but not today, because I protected Sadie and I saved Fia. They needed me, so I did it. And Fia needs more saving.

I swing the gun to where I know Rafael is sitting on the couch. If I knew for certain that he was going to hurt me or Fia again, I'd shoot him. I wouldn't hesitate. But I don't have that guarantee, and I can't justify it. "You. Leave. If you ever come near me or my sister-or Sadie-again, you're a dead man."

"Annie," he says, "we're on the same side. Now that-"

"You set this up. You set us all up. We are not on the same side. Don't think I will ever forget that you were willing to destroy my sister. Get out."

I hear the creak of leather as Rafael stands.

"This isn't over." James's voice surprises me. It's tortured, strained, full of more honest emotion that I've ever heard from him.

"Far from it," Rafael answers. I hear someone else stand and leave the room, and that's when I remember Cole was fighting with Nathan. I had completely forgotten to take Nathan into account. But I didn't need to. Cole was with me.

I reach my free hand back until I find Fia's. It feels small and cold, and I wrap it in mine, tug her gently forward until I can feel her body at my side.