Future Imperfect (36 page)
Standing in the parking lot outside Celebrity’s tonight, this drunken ass swimmer throws down his beer can and it goes skittering across the asphalt. Then he stomps out his cigarette and puts his fists up like he’s in a boxing movie.
Vauxhall says, “Dog’s name was Rusty. Super original, right?”
The dude shouts, “Shut up! Come on.”
He motions for me to fight. I say, “Just move over a few feet. You’re not in position.” And he actually moves. When he’s there, I tell him to stop. Then, his fists still pumping in the air between us, I tell him that it would really be a good idea for him not to try and fight me. I say, “This is just going to end up embarrassing for you.”
The dude yells an expletive.
Vauxhall says, to me, “You warned him.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
That’s when the guy makes his move, he throws a punch at me and I move right out of the way. He stumbles forward and that’s exactly the time I knee him in the nose. His nose splits and the blood scribbles all over the asphalt. He falls on his ass right where I expected him to, about six feet to the left of the passenger-side door of my car.
As we’re leaving, I say to Vauxhall, “You should totally bust out that Negative Woman costume again. The two of us, you in the past, me in the future, we’re going to be the next Doom Patrol.”
Vauxhall, her face dials up a mischievous grin. “We defeating evil?”
“Definitely,” I say.
“We helping orphans?”
“Of course.”
And we kiss like the soon-to-be superheroes we are.
What Vauxhall sees, she doesn’t mention.
And what I see I don’t let her know either.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
FUTURE IMPERFECT
. Copyright © 2011 by K. Ryer Breese. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Breese, K. Ryer.
Future imperfect / K. Ryer Breese.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Ade is addicted to the feeling he gets after knocking himself unconscious brings visions of the future, but when he meets Vauxhall, with whom he knows he will fall in love, he discovers that she also has an addiction and that together they may be able to do the impossible—change the future.
ISBN 978-0-312-64151-1
1. Clairvoyance—Fiction. 2. Self-destructive behavior—Fiction. 3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. I. Title.
PZ7.B74824Fut 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010043622
First Edition: April 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-7819-4
First Thomas Dunne Books eBook Edition: April 2011
