Betrayal (Vanish Book Two) (13 page)

“I didn’t even know you knew my name,” he
scoffed.

“What? Dante,” I cried. I almost broke down
and told him how much I loved him. How much I needed him to hold me
right now, but that was in the future. “You’re my best friend.”

“Have you gone insane? You and your stuck-up
friends wouldn’t even look in my direction.”

“What?” I stayed on the ground unable to
comprehend this. Ann was suddenly the perfect mom. Okay, I guess I
could accept that. But this? No.

“Please just leave. I need some time alone,
without you bothering me.”

“You need to listen. We were looking for
Grace, your other best friend. She went missing, and I got locked
away in a mental hospital—”

“Yeah? Did you escape or something? Because
it sounds like you need to go back.”

“No, it was in the future.” I sounded insane.
I could tell after each word I said, but I couldn’t stop, it just
kept spewing out. “We were in love.”

“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking
about, but I’m sure you can find someone else to babble to.”

The air escaped from my lungs and wouldn’t
return. All I could hear inside my head, was him telling me he
loved me. All I could think about was the smile on his face as he
pulled me toward him. I needed to get back to the future. I would
rather die with Dante, than live with us like this. I was prepared
for him to think that we were only friends. I could handle that. I
didn’t know if I could handle it forever, after having a slight,
beautiful glimpse at what it was like to be with him. This I could
not handle.

I walked away, back toward the funeral home,
though I still didn’t know who the funeral was for. I needed to
convince Rose that she had done this. I needed her to take us back,
but I also knew that it wouldn’t work.

When I reached the funeral home, the parking
lot was full of people. It was over, and I was gone for much longer
than I thought. I walked over to Ann and Rose.

“I’m so sorry about your husband, Marsha,”
Ann said.

Dante’s dad was the one who died. I couldn’t
help but feel like it was my fault. Sure, he would have died
anyway, but it had to of been a year or more from now. I felt awful
for Dante. That was why he wanted to be left alone, aside from just
not wanting me around.

I heard girls giggling and soon one of them
was grabbing onto my arm and dragging me across the parking
lot.

“Let go of me,” I snarled.

“Whoa, chill out Scarlett,” she said in a
snobby voice, I turned to look at her. Nicole Thomas.

“What do you want?” I sneered.

“I thought we were going to the mall
today?”

“Huh?” I raised my eyebrow and gave her a
dirty look.

Nicole Thomas was the biggest bitch I had
ever met. She and her friends took pleasure in nothing more than
making people’s lives hell.

She looked over towards her friends, waiting
in her shiny, purple Beetle. She motioned for them to come
over.

“What’s up?” Amber Anderson asked as she
walked over, with Rebecca Fields following close behind.

“Something’s wrong with Scarlett,” Nicole
answered. “She seems to have forgotten that we had plans, and look
at that dress.” They all looked disgusted, as if I were wearing
rags. This dress was a lot nicer than anything I’d worn in a long
time.

“Come on let’s go,” Rebecca demanded. Nicole
grabbed my arm again, and started dragging me toward the car.

“I’m not going,” I protested.

“Yes you are.”

“No, I’m not.” I pulled my arm away.

“You’re going to regret this,” she
warned.

“I’m sorry. I have other things to deal
with,” I said as I walked away. I walked back over to Rose and Ann
as the Beetle sped away.

“What was that about?” Rose asked.

“It was nothing,” I said as I got in the car.
Ann finished talking to Dante’s mom and got in the car as well.

When we arrived home, I ran up the stairs,
Rose followed close behind me. I sat down on my bed, and she sat on
hers, just staring.

“There’s something different about you,” she
blurted. I got up and shut the door.

“Rose, I know I’m not the only one that knows
what’s going on here.”

“No, Scarlett I don’t know what is going on
with you. You’re acting weird. I mean, the Scarlett I know would
have ditched the funeral to go to the mall…. Which reminds me, if
you weren’t with Nicole, who were you with?”

“I was with Dante,” I explained. I felt awful
that I missed the funeral, but I had to find him.

“Dante?” Rose said, confused. “You wouldn’t
be caught dead talking to Dante Quinn”

“No, Rose something has changed, and it’s not
me,” I explained.

“Alright, if you say so.”

“Okay forget about all of this.” I shook my
head. “We came back from the future Rose. I’ve been friends with
Dante since I was ten—”

“No you’ve been friends with those awful
girls since you were ten.”

I thought for a moment, was it possible that
we changed things so much that no one had powers anymore? That must
be it! If they had powers, they would know I was telling the truth—
or it would at least be a little bit likelier that they would
believe it.

“So Rose,” I began. “Have you ever heard of
real people having superpowers?”

“No,” she answered as she lay on her bed
flipping through the pages of a magazine.

“So you can’t go back in time?”

“No,” she said as she glanced up at me. “I’m
starting to think that you really have gone crazy, Scarlett.”

“I was joking,” I laughed more convincingly
than I expected. “I’m going for a walk.” She looked up from the
magazine again.

“Don’t be back too late, we have school
tomorrow.”

I turned down the street without thinking,
before I knew it I was standing in front of Dante’s house. I wanted
to knock on the door. I needed to see him, but I knew it would be
the same as it had been in the woods.

I turned around and walked
to Grace’s. I needed to see her
alive
, and I hadn’t seen her since I
got here. When I got to her house, I walked up to the porch and
knocked on the door. A woman that I didn’t recognize answered the
door.

“Is Grace here?” I asked.

“No, sorry,” she said before she shut the
door.

Grace didn’t live here anymore? I would just
have to look for her at school tomorrow. I wasn’t looking forward
to that. I had no idea what had happened before in this alternate
universe, but I was certain I would make a fool out of myself
somehow.

I walked home and got in
bed. Rose was already asleep. I was so worried about tomorrow,
besides looking like an idiot, what if someone did realize
something else was
off
.

I closed my eyes, and tried to forget
everything. If I wanted to pull this off, I needed to be well
rested.

When I did fall asleep, I knew as soon as my
dream began, that it wouldn’t be a good one. It was a dream of the
future—a dream of my past.

I stood at the edge of the cliff as the
Alliance stared me down. There were about twenty people, so at
least the whole Alliance wasn’t after me… yet. I knew I was
dreaming, so I took the time to observe each of them. I looked
through the crowd from the right to the left. I didn’t notice
anyone familiar until I came to the end of the line.

Ann and Nurse Debby stood there staring me
down, anticipating the moment that they would kill me. I flinched,
and looked back at Dante’s ghost. The urge to jump swept over me
again.

Everything happened as it did before, but it
all happened so fast the last time, I hadn’t really seen what went
on. After I was hanging off the cliff, things seemed to get
clearer. Whoever took over Dante’s body, pushed Rose, but we didn’t
fall, not right away. My fingernails dug through the dirt as I held
Rose’s weight and my own. Then, Dante’s ghostly hand reached for
mine. It hadn’t hit me before, that since the man at the mansion
where we saved Grace had held on to me, Dante could as well.

He pulled us up a little bit. The Alliance
couldn’t stop him, but both of us were too heavy for him to pull
up. As we fell to the ground, still holding each other’s hands, I
had an out of body experience. Rose screamed all the way to the
ground, and she moaned as she lay there, but I was gone, my body
had disappeared.