Free Into the Shadows by Jason D. Morrow Page B

turn around. She can see the reflection in the window.  
    “I had a feeling this had something to do with you, Jeremiah,” she says.  
    Jeremiah stands on the other side of the room, his gun raised into the air, a look of hatred in his eyes.  
    “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.”
    “I know you have,” Olivia says. “I knew it was only a matter of time before you would get to me. I’m surprised you waited so long.”
    “Put your gun down, Olivia,” he says.  
    “Why?” she asks. “You could have shot me already. You still can.”
    “I want to see your eyes.”
    “No you don’t. The moment we look at each other, you’ll remember all the sweet times we had.” She says this with an air of sarcasm that seems to make Jeremiah grimace.  
    He curses her and aims his gun directly at her head. But in his anger, he hesitates. She spins around suddenly and lets off a shot from her pistol, hitting him in the chest and throwing him against the back wall. He drops his gun on the ground as he reaches for his chest in pain.  
    Olivia shakes her head as she walks toward him. But her attention is divided when another figure rushes through the door.  
    Waverly—my future self. She storms in, her handgun firing, but Olivia is too quick and hits her in the shoulder, sending her spinning to the ground.  
    Olivia is breathing hard now, but she looks back at Jeremiah.
    “Someone is going to kill you before this is over with,” Jeremiah says.  
    “Yes, well that won’t be today. And it won’t be you.” She takes a deep breath and points the gun at his chest again. “I loved you once.” She pulls the trigger. Blood splatters the floor and Olivia turns to Waverly.  
    “And you,” she says. “I truly am surprised to see you here.”
    Waverly reaches for her handgun, but Olivia fires a shot into the floor in front of her, making Waverly freeze in place.
    “I didn’t really want to kill you, but you have given me no choice.”
    “Please,” Waverly says. “I just…I just…” She can’t seem to find the words to say.  
    Olivia lifts the gun, aiming it at Waverly’s head. There’s a sound of a blast, and a white light flashes.
    I find myself in front of Olivia, my mouth gaping open. I shut it quickly when I realize that she is staring at me with an eyebrow raised.  
    “Tell me what you saw,” she says.  
    I shake my head. “A meeting.”
    “Among the settlement leaders?” she asks.  
    “Yes.”
    “Tell me something I said.”
    I hesitate another moment, trying to think of something that sounds official. I don’t want to tell her what I really saw because she will become panicked. She would probably try to kill me now and figure out a way to go after Jeremiah so we would never make it so far. She knows that I can change the future. She would do everything in her power to ensure that I can’t this time.
    Apart from seeing myself die, what bothers me the most is that a week from now, I’m going to return here. What could possibly bring me back? I would never come back.  
    I rack my brain for words that might sound like a speech. “You said something like ‘the time has come for us to unite under one banner,’ or maybe you said it a different way. I was watching the people more.”
    Her furrowed eyebrows tells me that she’s not convinced that I’m telling the truth. “And how many people were in the meeting?”
    How many leaders are in Shadowface’s network? “Twelve maybe?” I shrug, hoping I came even close to the right amount.  
    Olivia sighs and her jaw stiffens. “You’re lying to me,” she says. “That’s not at all what you saw. How can we be in cooperation if you’re just going to lie to me?”
    “That’s what I saw, I swear.”
    She shakes her head. “No. It isn’t. If there is one thing I’m good at, it’s being able to tell when someone is lying. Besides, nowhere in my planned speech will I say ‘the time has come for us to unite under one