Betrayal (Vanish Book Two) Read online

Great, now I was back to feeling crazy over something I was sure of. I was sure I didn’t kill Grace; I was crazy. Now I’m sure we went back in time, but no one, not even the person I came here with believes me. I went down and sat at the table with Ann and Rose.

  Once I was finished eating breakfast, I marched up the stairs to get ready. I still didn’t know what I was getting ready for. I put on some jeans and a nice green blouse. I figured that should work for most occasions. Ann knew I wasn’t much for dressing up, so if this occasion called for that, she should have said so.

  “What are you doing?” Rose asked as she walked up to me in a black dress.

  “What?”

  “Umm I know this is hard for you. You knew him better than I did, all the more reason to have some respect.”

  “Where are we going?” I wondered.

  “Are you kidding? We’re going to a funeral,” Rose said in disbelief.

  I couldn’t bear to ask my next question. So much had changed, I knew I was going to come off crazy sooner or later because it was obvious I should have known this. Whose funeral were we going to? Did we mess up the past so bad by coming back to it, that— no. I couldn’t even think it. I grabbed a black dress out of the closet and stumbled into the bathroom. When I came out, I couldn’t even speak, not until we got to the funeral, not until I knew for sure.

  “Come on girls,” Ann called from downstairs.

  When we reached the funeral home, I saw Dante’s mother and brothers on the stairs in the front of the building. They were hugging and crying.

  The funeral home was right on the edge of a familiar patch of woods. I couldn’t do this. I wanted to be there. I knew I would regret it, but once I had my opening, I took it and ran straight for the woods.

  Me and Dante’s favorite spot was behind the bar a little ways down the street. I knew it wouldn’t take too long to get there. I would rather remember him sitting in that spot, than him lying in a casket. I ran through the woods, not bothering to watch were I was going. I tripped over roots and big branches, but soon I was close to my destination.

  The woods were just as beautiful as I remembered, it must have been spring or summer. The trees were covered in perfect green leaves. The warm air was comforting, but nothing could make me feel better.

  I walked the rest of the way, taking everything in. The most depressing thought I had, besides the actual realization that he was dead, was that he died before I ever got to tell him how I felt. Before he could tell me he felt the same, in this alternate reality though, that may not have been the case.

  I anticipated the beautiful river, flowing over the smooth rocks, and sitting on the rock we shared to watch it countless times before.

  When I reached it, I stood there in shock. Sitting there on the rock—our rock—was Dante, but was he alive or was it only his ghost?

  Everything was so different now. We changed the past by coming back to it, but did that mean the future had changed as well? I walked closer to the rock where Dante sat, unaware of me coming up behind him. I needed a closer look, though differentiating a ghost from a person wasn’t easy. The best way I’d come up with thus far was wounds, or appearing out of thin air.

  I couldn’t bear it anymore; I needed to touch him, hug him, be near him for only a second. I ran up and wrapped my arms around him.

  “What the hell are you doing? Get off me.” He pushed me off him and down to the ground. I’d taken him by surprise, he was frightened that’s all, I told myself.

  “Dante, you need to listen to me. I know none of this is going to make sense, but please hear me out. I came back from the future; we were hiding out from the Alliance. Long story short, they cornered us, well, not really us because you were a ghost. My sister and I came back in time, and now everything is different—”

  “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.