Free A World Without You by Beth Revis Page B

crazy.
    â€œIt’s just that, I should be able to go back to exactly where she got stuck in time and pull her out. But . . . I can’t. So maybe the reason why I can’t find her in the timestream anymore is because . . . maybe she’s . . .”
    No. Those words can’t be spoken.
    â€œYou talk to ghosts, right?” I say finally.
    Harold’s eyes shift, unfocused, gazing at something . . . someone . . . only he can see. “The voices speak to me,” he says softly.
    Creepy stuff like that is exactly the reason Harold got beat up so much at his old school.
    He lets silence fall around us.
    â€œI guess I just wanted to ask . . .”
    Harold stares at me intently. Waiting.
    â€œDo you see Sofía?”
    There. I said it.
    â€œI don’t always see,” Harold says, his eyes losing focus. “Often, I just hear. Whispers. Regrets. Whispers.”
    I lean up on my knees. I want to grab Harold, force him to give me his full attention. “But do you see or hear
Sofía
?” I ask, my voice rising. “Maybe she’s gone, maybe what I did—” I swallow. “Maybe what I did killed her. And if it did, I know she’d come back. Here. To me. To all of us. Has she . . . do you see her? Do you hear her?”
    Harold cocks his head like a cat about to pounce on a bird rustling in the grass. When he speaks, his voice is almost inaudible. “No. She is silent. She is not in the voices. She is just . . . gone.”
    I sag in relief. Gone—but not so far gone that I can’t still reach her. She’s not dead. She’s okay. She’s stuck in the pastbehind some sort of block that’s stopping me from saving her, but she’s still alive.
    â€œThanks, man,” I say, standing up and smacking Harold on the knee. Harold jerks as if startled out of deep sleep by the touch. I’ll leave him to his ghosts, then. I wander over to the cushions where Gwen is sitting, using a flamethrower on the horde approaching her character on the screen.
    â€œYou should be careful what you say,” Gwen mutters, not taking her eyes off the TV.
    â€œHuh?”
    Gwen shoots me a look. “The Doctor’s not here, but he is, you know?” Her voice drops an octave. “Watching.” Her eyes flick to the corner where I had just been sitting, talking to Harold.
    â€œI don’t under—”
    â€œThere.” Gwen’s eyes linger on the ceiling, on the almost invisible black camera lens that points at exactly the spot where I had just been sitting.
    â€œWhy is the Doctor spying on us?” I ask, shifting closer to Gwen. I scan the room and notice at least three more cameras, one in each corner, pointing down on us.
    Gwen shrugs. “Don’t know. But he is.”
    â€œIt’s been like this for two weeks,” Ryan calls from the table in the center of the room, his attention still on the chess game. “They installed them after the last episode.” His eyes flick to Harold.
    Three weeks ago, Harold was possessed by a malevolent spirit he’d been trying to talk into leaving him alone. He attacked Dr. Franklin. The Doc wasn’t hurt, of course—hehealed himself in seconds—but I guess the director decided to add more security after that.
    To be honest, I’m just relieved that the cameras weren’t installed because of
my
screw-up.
    â€œIt’s probably just a precaution,” I say. I can’t help but wonder, though, how the director expects cameras to keep us safe.
    â€œSure,” Ryan says, his tone flat. “Yeah, that’s probably all it is.”

CHAPTER 11
    Sunday.
    The last day of the weekend. Tomorrow, classes start again. And next weekend, I’m stuck going to my parents’ house. I have to make today count.
    All right, fine, let’s approach this scientifically. I grab my notebook from my desk